Landscape with Hawks

Hawks were a favored subject among warlords of the Sengoku period, and the patron of this work also seems to have been from the warrior class. Sesson was a Zen monk and painter who worked in the Kanto region between the late Muromachi and Azuchi-Momoyama periods, skilled at ink painting that uses shades of ink.

The style is restrained among Sesson's works, but his traits show clearly in the oddly shaped rocks and the waves that writhe like tentacles. What is shown here is part of a screen, with churning waves, mist-veiled mountains, and rugged rocks.

There are three hawks across the left and right screens, each moving differently. The hawk on the right screen twists its neck and stares sharply down at an angle, and in the shadow of the rocks where its gaze falls, a rabbit is painted like a hidden picture. Each screen is 159.6 cm tall and 333.6 cm wide, and the work is designated an Important Art Object.