Cooling Off

On a late-summer evening, gourds hang from a bamboo trellis beside a humble hut. On a straw mat, three people, a reclining man, a woman and a child, silently watch a white full moon. The darkness around the moon shows that night is close at hand, and the finely painted gravel suggests a nearby stream and a cool breeze.

The three are plainly dressed, but the reclining man's expression has a dignified air. The child sitting beside the father has a calm face, and the parents' feelings for their child come through. Morikage varies his brushwork for each motif, including the outlines of the figures, the moon and the bamboo poles, which shows the height of his skill.

Morikage was an early Edo-period painter, a mysterious figure whose birth year is not even known. He was a leading pupil of Kano Tan'yu, who served the Tokugawa shogunal house, and was counted one of the Four Heavenly Kings of his school, but it is said that he was expelled by his master, or alternatively that he served the Kaga domain. His child was also a painter, but his son was exiled to Sado and his daughter seems to have left her father. The work is held by the Tokyo National Museum and was designated a National Treasure in 1952.