Mountain Landscape

In the lower left of this landscape, a small figure pauses on a bridge to contemplate the journey ahead. High above the cluster of houses in the mid-ground, a lofty spire indicates his destination: a mountainside temple. Two lines of verse by the Chinese poet Lu You (1125–1210) complement the theme. The right to travel abroad was strictly forbidden during most of the Edo period (1603–1868). Yasuda Rozan, however, was impatient to visit China, which he regarded as the cultural heartland of literati painting. With the help of Dutch missionary Guido Verbeck (1830–1898), Rozan and another painter, Ishikawa Kansen (1844–1917), set sail from Nagasaki for Shanghai in 1867, the year before the travel ban was lifted. Rozan remained in China for seven years, studying under the Shanghai master Hu Gongshou (1823–1886), before returning to Japan in 1873, where he enjoyed a short but successful career as a professional painter. Inscription: When feeling tired, I sometimes lean on a crooked table. When in the mood, I drag a cane here and there. The winter of 1877 at the Thatched Hall of Water and Stone; a landscape emulating Lu Fangweng’s poetic flavor painted at the request of Mr Hirano. Rozan An Yo.