Landscape, from a triptych of White-robed Kannon with Landscape and Tiger

Kanō Tan'yū was one of the foremost artists of the Edo period (1600-1868). In his position as official painter to the Tokugawa rulers, he had access to their great collections of art including ink paintings by earlier Japanese artists as well as examples imported from China. Flanking an iconic image of a Buddhist deity (in this case, Kannon, the bodhisattva of mercy and compassion) with unconventional themes like the tiger and landscape seen here, was an idea that first emerged among iconoclastic Chinese painters who were adherents of Zen Buddhism. In his impressionistic handling of ink, too, Tan'yū harkens back to earlier Zen-inspired artists who wielded the brush in a free and spontaneous manner.