Untitled Landscape

This landscape appears to show the Mountain Market in Clearing Mist theme from the Eight Views tradition, which reached Japan by the 13th century through Japanese Buddhist monks studying in China. The piece uses the haboku 破墨, or “splashed ink,” style influenced by Sesshū Tōyō, employing varied brushstrokes and ink splashes to create an abstract yet recognizable landscape.

These ink landscapes offer viewers a spiritual, almost magical way to experience nature beyond physical reality. While mid-20th-century scholars interpreted this transcendent quality as purely Zen Buddhist, we now understand these works served multiple purposes. The artists, even those with Buddhist training, often worked for non-religious patrons and drew from secular Chinese literary culture. These landscapes thus fulfilled various social and political roles while still inviting viewers to see nature through a more spiritual lens.