Landscape with River in Mountainous Country [left of a triptych]

Kyo_sai is considered to be one of the most talented painters of Japan's late nineteenth century. Classically trained as a painter in the government-sponsored Kano school, he eventually broke free of the school and established a reputation for himself - as much for his eccentric behavior and fondness for wine, as for his great skill at painting. He specialized in figures and animals, making this landscape painting rare among his surviving works. The composition is typical of Kano school paintings, but Kyo_sai's loose brushwork reveals his awareness of the impressionistic style preferred by Zen monks in China and Japan.

Credit: Gift of Louis W. Hill, Jr.