Image source: upload.wikimedia.org
Zhou Maoshu Admiring Lotuses
Artist:Kaiho Yusetsu
| Support Type: | Silk |
| Paint Type: | Ink |
| Current Location: | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA |
| Location History: | Zhou Maoshu Admiring Lotuses was painted by Kaihō Yūsetsu in Japan during the mid-seventeenth century. The artwork's early ownership history is undocumented in published records. By the twentieth century, it had entered the Mary Griggs Burke Collection, a distinguished private collection of Japanese art assembled by Mary Griggs Burke. In 2015, the painting was transferred to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as part of the Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation. It is currently preserved in the Museum's Department of Asian Art under accession number 2015.300.221. |
The painting unfolds like a quiet poem on water where movement becomes a metaphor for longing. A boat drifts through an expansive, almost dreamlike landscape carrying two figures whose contrasting positions suggest different relationships with the world. One reclines peacefully, in contemplation maybe, while the boatman stands alert, guiding their shared journey. The sparse composition and muted colours create an atmosphere of solitude and serenity making the water appear less like a physical space and more like a passage between thought and reality.
Information Compiled by
Isha Pal