Landscape in the Manner of Ni Zan

Copying old paintings and emulating ancient masters is a practice seen frequently in works by Japanese literati painters. One of the leading painters of his day, Yamamoto Baiitsu turned for inspiration to Ni Zan, a Chinese painter who lived 500 years earlier. Ni Zan was known for his distinctively sparse landscapes, which he created using sketchy brushwork and a relatively dry brush. His compositions often feature a foreground of lanky trees separated from far-distant mountains by a wide expanse of undefined water. Baiitsu skillfully adapted Ni Zan’s compositional formula to the folding-fan format by placing the foreground slightly left of center and then creating two separate mountain vistas, one at far left and the other at right.