Artworks

Bare Peaks of Mount Gabi

Artwork · Yosa Buson · 1778–1783 · handscroll

Yosa Buson’s most personal style, after a poem by Li Bai (701–762) on the moonlit Mount Emei in Sichuan: the boldly written title and the painter’s signature open the scroll, then peak after peak in dark grey ink with thin red ocher, each different, until at the very end a sliver of moon is left in the untouched paper — the moon, so important in the poem, is the scroll’s surprise. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 334–335, fig. 390. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.