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Poems and Pictures of the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Unkoku Tōgan brushed these scenes using the splashed-ink technique associated in Japan with the Chinese monk Yujian Ruofen (active late 1200s). Xiao-Xiang refers to the region in present-day Hunan province, where the Xiang River and its tributaries converge. Each of the eight views evokes a time of day or season. The earliest surviving series of Xiao-Xiang paintings is by Wang Hong (active mid-1100s), but textual evidence tells us the theme appears earlier. It was later adopted in Japan and Korea, as seen here.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit linePoems and Pictures of the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang (瀟湘八景詩画巻), 1605–12. Unkoku Tōgan (Japanese, 1547–1618), inscribed by Inkei Gentetsu (Japanese, 1562–1612). Handscroll; ink on paper; 40.3 x 657.8 cm (15 7/8 x 259 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 2020.258
