Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00010046Four Elders of Mt. Shang
by Kano Tan’yū
About the Artwork
The Kano school was a group of professional artists patronized by the shogun from the late Muromachi period to the Edo period. The group adopted themes of reclusiveness to convey the importance of loyalty to the shogunate. A leader of the Edo Kano school, Kano Tanyu paired Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Four Elders of Mt. Shang to reference a painting of the same theme attributed to Kano Motonobu. Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove refers to the elites who escaped the social chaos of China’s Wei-Jin period (AD 200s–400s); they fled to a secluded bamboo grove where they could express themselves freely, enjoying pure conversation, music, and wine. The other screen, Four Elders of Mt. Shang, depicts the scholars who left the turbulence of the late Qin dynasty to pursue their scholarly interests in seclusion on Mt. Shang in Shanxi province.
Provenance
?–1979: Osborne I. Hauge [1913–2004] and Victor Lloyd Hauge [1919–2013], Falls Church, VA, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1979–: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Exhibition history
Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001). The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 15-August 21, 2011).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Kano Tan’yū (Japanese, 1602–1674)
- Date
- 1600s
- Medium
- One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 161 x 339 cm (63 3/8 x 133 7/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Osborne and Gratia Hauge and Victor and Takako Hauge
- Accession no.
- 1979.78.2
More by Kano Tan’yū in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00010046
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