Ink Painting

Muromachi Period of Japan is known for various forms of thriving visual arts, most prominent amongst these is ink painting.

One of the styles of ink paintng that developed during this time is sui-boku-ga (水墨画) or as we better know it, sumi-e (墨絵).  This style of ink painting utilized only black ink in the form of an ink stick that the artist grinds into water themselves.  Varied concentrations of ink and water allow for this ink and wash style of painting to have strong value ranges of blacks and diluted grays.

Sesshū Tōyō (雪舟 等楊) also known as Tōyō, Unkoku, was a master of prominence in this style.

Autumn Landscape (Shukei-sansui)

This piece by Toyo is visually weighted in the foreground of the picture plane as shown in the heavy mountain lines and strong value monochramtic value.  Yet as the viewers eye is drawn back into the picture towards the temple and the distant horizon of mountains the composition becomes light and ephemeral in the slightest of hints of almost transparent grays.

Strong sense of space and perspective which lends itself to this Zen art and that of the "excursion garden."