The Liezi, a fourth-century Daoist text, records the story of Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi, scholars renowned for their devotion to each other. Bo Ya, an accomplished player of the qin, a type of zither, would frequently play for his friend Zhong, himself a musician who truly appreciated his friend’s music. When Zhong died, however, the bereaved Bo Ya deliberately broke his instrument, never to play again.
Likely once part of a set of sliding-door panels (fusuma), this painting depicts Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi taking shelter from a storm beneath a cliff, where Bo Ya plays his qin to pass the time. The work bears no seal or signature but exemplifies the formal landscape style of the early Kano school and was traditionally attributed to the school’s founder, Motonobu. Discrepancies with Motonobu’s accepted style, however, suggest that the artist was active in Motonobu’s circle, probably during the 1530s.
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狩野元信周辺 伯牙鍾子期図
Title:Bo Ya Plays the Qin as Zhong Ziqi Listens
Artist:Circle of Kano Motonobu (Japanese, 1477–1559)
Period:Muromachi period (1392–1573)
Date:1530s
Culture:Japan
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
Dimensions:Image: 65 1/16 × 34 1/4 in. (165.2 × 87 cm) Overall with mounting: 8 ft. 10 7/8 in. × 40 13/16 in. (271.5 × 103.7 cm) Overall with knobs: 8 ft. 10 7/8 in. × 43 3/16 in. (271.5 × 109.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015
Accession Number:2015.300.67
A story in the Liezi, a Daoist text dating to the third century, tells of Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi, two gentlemen-scholars renowned for their close friendship and their fierce loyalty to each other. One day, when they were enjoying an outing at Taishan Mountain in Shandong Province, a sudden storm forced them to take refuge under a large rock. As they waited for the skies to clear, Bo Ya, an accomplished musician, began to play the qin for his companion. When his friend Zhong died, the bereaved Bo Ya broke his instrument, never to play it again.[1] The story was very popular in China, where playing the qin was considered the epitome of scholarly accomplishment and the unflagging loyalty of the two men to each other exemplified the highest standards of Confucian virtue.
In the Burke scroll Bo Ya, dressed in a flowing scholar's robe, is seen seated under a shallow rocky overhang, his qin on a table before him. Zhong Ziqi, seated a short distance away, listens attentively with his head slightly bowed. The reverent concentration of the two gentlemen is in marked contrast to the harsh mountain setting, with its crystalline rocks and violently twisted pine branches. Although the painting has neither signature nor seal, it was attributed to Kano Motonobu (ca. 1476–1559) on stylistic grounds in 1935, when it was designated an Important Art Object, an honorary classification formerly used by the Japanese government. It bears a striking resemblance to fusuma (sliding screens) that once decorated six rooms in the Hōjō (abbot's quarters) of Daisen'in, a subtemple of Daitokuji, Kyoto.[2] Remounted as hanging scrolls, they are now divided between the National Museums of Kyoto and Tokyo. Thirty of the paintings have traditionally been attributed to Motonobu,[3] and the Burke scroll shares with them many features that reflect a reliance on painting of the Ming dynasty: strong outlines, the decorative use of surface texture, and a pronounced asymmetrical composition. Although it was never part of the Daisen'in group, which is preserved in its entirety, its relatively large dimensions and crowded composition suggest that it too may once have been part of a set of fusuma decorating a temple interior. A recent study shows that other paintings can be attributed to the painter of the Burke scroll, an artist who, if not Motonobu himself, must have belonged to Motonobu's circle and worked closely with him[4]
Kano Motonobu was the son of Kano Masanobu (1434–1530), the first member of a long line of Kano artists. In his groundbreaking study, published in 1966–70, Tsuji Nobuo identified and classified more than one hundred paintings associated with Motonobu,[5] an ambitious and successful artist who was engaged in a wide range of activities. Not only did he follow his father as the official painter for the Ashikaga shoguns but he secured for himself and for successive generations of Kano artists the patronage of the ruling military, court nobles, Zen monasteries, and the affluent merchants, who were emerging as a new class. To accomplish this awesome task, Motonobu wielded the two-edged sword of salesmanship and skillful public relations. It was also crucial to Motonobu's success that he was able to transform Zen-inspired ink painting into a decorative style that appealed to the taste of secular patrons. Motonobu is believed to have married a woman from the Tosa family of artists, perhaps a daughter of the clan leader, Mitsunobu (fl. 1469–1523). This alliance reportedly enabled him to study the Japanese yamato-e style and to incorporate its techniques into ink monochrome.[6]
Motonobu's paintings apparently received some attention in China. In 1510, a Chinese named Zhengzi wrote a letter to Motonobu stating that Motonobu's paintings reminded him of works by two Chinese painters of the Song dynasty, Zhao Chang (fl. early 11th century) and Ma Yuan (fl. ca. 1190–1225). He also expressed his desire to study with the Japanese master.[7] In 1541, Motonobu was commissioned to paint three pairs of gold screens and one hundred folding fans—export items much prized in China—which were to be presented to the Ming emperor, Shizong, by a Japanese trade mission.[8] Motonobu's fame was well established in his own lifetime, and he was awarded the honorary priestly title of hōgen in his later years.
Bo Ya Plays the Qin includes all the basic elements of a successful Kano-school painting. The subtle tranquillity of earlier ink painting is replaced by a bold style that combines heavy ink outlines with color in a large two-dimensional composition in a decorative polychrome formula that became the standard for generations of Kano artists and their followers over the next three hundred years.
[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] Liezi 1960, pp. 109–10. [2] Takeuchi Shōji 1972, pp. 87–88. [3] Fontein and Hickman 1970, no. 63; and Tsuji Nobuo 1966–70, pt. 3 (1970), p. 43. [4] Kyoto National Museum 1996, no. 38. [5] Tsuji Nobuo 1966–70, pts. 1–5. See also Yamamoto Hideo 1994, pp. 363–71. [6] For an emaki by Moronobu in the yamato-e style, the Kuramagaiiji engi, see Kurokawa Harumura 1885–1901, vol. 4, p. 21. For an emaki attributed to Motonobu, the Shakadō engi of 1515, see Murase 1983a, no. 34. For Masanobu's connection with the Tosa family, see Jinson Daisōjōki, diary of the Kōfukuji monk Jinson (1430–1508), for the twelfth month of the ninth year of the Bunmei era (1477). [7] Eto Shun 1961, pp. 72–74. [8] Tsuji Nobuo 1966–70, pt. 1, p. 23.
Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," November 7, 1975–January 4, 1976.
Princeton University Art Museum. "Japanese Ink Paintings from American Collections," April 25, 1976–June 13, 1976.
Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.
Tokyo National Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," May 21, 1985–June 30, 1985.
Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.
Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.
Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.
New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. "Die Kunst des Alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," September 16, 1990–November 18, 1990.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.
Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," July 5, 2005–August 19, 2005.
Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 4, 2005–December 11, 2005.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," January 24, 2006–March 5, 2006.
Miho Museum. "Enduring Legacy of Japanese Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 15, 2006–June 11, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017.
Pekarik, Andrew. Painting: Behind the Scenes. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 1992, pp. 54–55.
Tsuji Nobuo 辻惟雄, Mary Griggs Burke, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, and Gifu-ken Bijutsukan 岐阜県美術館. Nyūyōku Bāku korekushon-ten: Nihon no bi sanzennen no kagayaki ニューヨーク・バーク・コレクション展 : 日本の美三千年の輝き(Enduring legacy of Japanese art: The Mary Griggs Burke collection). Exh. cat. [Tokyo]: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2005, cat. no. 46.
Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 103, cat. no. 130.
Carpenter, John T. The Poetry of Nature: Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, p. 20, fig. 1.
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