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Your gallerySummer Flowers
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Look closely at a greenbrier leaf at lower left, where pooled color meets fine gold veins, then find the orange lanterns hanging at lower right.
White hydrangea, orange demon’s lantern and greenbrier grow together in this scroll. To give the leaves depth, Sōsetsu used the dripping-in method called tarashikomi, with a brush carrying far more water than ink or color, and then drew the veins of the leaves and the seams of the pods in gold. He signed it Hokkyō Sōsetsu; the Cleveland Museum of Art translates the title as Bridge of the Law.
hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on paper · Overall: 197.6 x 65.5 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Summer Flowers
- Artist
- Kitagawa Sōsetsu (Japanese, active 1639–50)
- Date
- mid-1600s
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 197.6 x 65.5 cm (77 13/16 x 25 13/16 in.); Painting only: 107.5 x 45.8 cm (42 5/16 x 18 1/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Bequest of Maud Eells Corning
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.