On the River Fen, Startled by Autumn

This hanging scroll is among Araki’s earliest explorations of Zhang Daqian’s trademark splashed-ink-and-color style and a rare example in Araki’s body of work of a painting with a literary subject. The composition combines large areas of splashed ink and some splatters of light color with landscape details rendered using a more modestly wet brush and traditional washes. The ominous black clouds that sweep across the mountainside, bending trees and sending birds flying, is Araki’s interpretation of the ominous North Wind in the first line of On the River Fen, Startled by Autumn, a poem by the Tang-dynasty poet Su Ting (680–737) that is inscribed at left: A North Wind sends white clouds billowing 北風吹白雲 ten thousand miles across the River Fen. 萬里渡河汾 My heart like a leaf trembles then falls. 心緒逢揺落 The voices of autumn are unbearable. 秋聲不可聞