The Bird's Nest Patriarch
early to mid-1600s
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Dimensions
- 95.8 × 38.7 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-110489
Tawaraya Sōtatsu’s painting was inspired by a 1602 Chinese book that featured images of legendary Chinese Buddhist experts and Daoist sages. The monk portrayed here is Niaoge, which literally means “Bird’s Nest.” He was a Zen practitioner who favored the isolation of treetops, from which he offered advice to the perplexed. The posture of the single figure suggests a dialogue with someone below. Sōtatsu was a master of the “boneless” (mokkotsu), or un-outlined, style of ink painting that relies on layered pools of ink wash for effect.
Provenance
Stone Memorial Fund, 1958.289
Registry history
- early to mid-1600s — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
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