Snails
Nagasawa Rosetsu
1783–1794
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink, color, and metallic pigments on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 114.3 x 40.6 cm (45 x 16 in.); Overall: 200.7 x 54 cm (79 x 21 1/4 in.)
- Genre
- Painting
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Styles
Tags
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
About
In this work, Nagasawa Rosetsu carefully described two snails in a manner known as “earth painting” (doro-e), building up colors mixed with crushed white shells in emulation of the thick brushstrokes of oil paint seen in European painting. A silvery metallic pigment indicates the snails’ trails, glistening along an earthen wall. Notably, one trail has no snail, leaving the viewer to guess why.
