Li Tieguai (left) 1646

water colours

japan

handmade artwork painting

oil painting

fluid art

earthy tone

coffee painting

underpainting

naive art

watercolour illustration

watercolor

This 1646 painting by Kano Sansetsu, titled "Li Tieguai (left)," is a stunning example of Japanese art, depicting two figures in a serene setting. The gold background, typical of Kano Sansetsu's works, adds a sense of grandeur and spirituality to the scene. Li Tieguai, a revered Daoist immortal, is seen on the left, while another figure, likely a Daoist adept, tends to a vase of white flowers. This piece, now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, exemplifies the beauty and skill of the Kano school, one of the most prominent painting schools in Japan.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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These sliding door panels (fusuma) show a group of Chinese Daoist immortals. The Chinese believed the immortals were historical and legendary personages who, through moral virtue, faith, and discipline, managed to transcend the bounds of the natural world and live forever. They were worshiped as saints. Old Chinese themes like this were admired in Japan by military rulers and Zen priests, who exalted Chinese culture and its heroes. This set of panels formed part of a much larger suite of paintings made for a temple in Kyoto. In the 1640s, Kano Sansetsu and his studio created hundreds of panel paintings for this temple. A devastating fire in the 1800s destroyed all but eight—the four panels you see here and four paintings that decorated their reverse, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.