The Four Accomplishments [right of a pair] by Shibata Zeshin

The Four Accomplishments [right of a pair] c. 19th century

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"The Four Accomplishments [right of a pair]" is a six-panel screen by renowned Japanese artist Shibata Zeshin, depicting scenes of women engaged in traditional arts. The screen's right side shows a group of women playing musical instruments, writing calligraphy, and reading. The left side of the screen depicts a scene of women admiring a folding screen with a landscape. The screen showcases Zeshin's masterful use of gold leaf and intricate details, characteristic of his Rinpa style, making this artwork an important example of Japanese art from the 19th century.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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This pair of screens shows fashionable youths in the pleasure quarters enjoying the so-called Four Elegant Accomplishments: music, the board game go, calligraphy, and painting. Music is represented by the women and blind elderly man in the left screen. A go board appears in the far right panel. Nearby, books, scrolls, and writing implements—collectively representing calligraphy—have been laid out for figures who surround a low black-lacquer desk. Some of them turn to admire a pair of folding-screen paintings depicting Chinese landscapes. Shibata Zeshin took inspiration from a famous folding screen commonly known as the Hikone Screen, a masterpiece of Japanese genre painting created in the 1620s or 1630s and well known in the 1800s. Zeshin was so moved after encountering the famous painting in Edo (now Tokyo) in the 1830s that he created at least six paintings modeled after it, including the present screens.