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Snails
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In this work, Nagasawa Rosetsu carefully described two snails in a manner known as “earth painting” ( doro-e ), building up colors mixed with crushed white shells in emulation of the thick brushstrokes of oil paint seen in European painting. A silvery metallic pigment indicates the snails’ trails, glistening along an earthen wall. Notably, one trail has no snail, leaving the viewer to guess why.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineSnails (カタツムリ図), c. 1788–89. Nagasawa Rosetsu (Japanese, 1754–1799). Hanging scroll; ink, color, and metallic pigments on paper; image: 114.3 x 40.6 cm (45 x 16 in.); overall: 200.7 x 54 cm (79 x 21 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1998.5
