Landscape of the four seasons, one of a pair

The four seasons are one of the most enduring themes in Japanese painting and decorative art. This pair of screens (with B60D48+) depicts seasonal changes proceeding from right to left across a composition with waters and an island in the center anchored by rocky cliffs on either side.

In the right screen, spring is represented by figures emerging on a path from pavilions nestled in steep mountains amidst flowering trees; summer is indicated through people boating and engaged in outdoor activities on a vast body of water. In the left screen, autumn is shown by a scholar and his assistant heading into their hermitage on the expansive, boat-dotted water, while winter is represented by a pair of hermits retreating to a white-roofed pavilion beneath towering snow-covered mountains. The gold applied across the surface of both screens is thought to have been added in a later period.

Shikibu Terutada is considered one of the most important ink painters of the Muromachi period, yet at the same time he is one of the least known because he seems to have worked in the Kanto region of Eastern Japan, far from the cultural center of Kyoto. He was apparently a traveling, professional painter who produced works for temples and for powerful samurai of that region. Scholars suggest that he may have learned his complex brushstrokes and compositions from Kenko Shokei (active approx. 1478-1506) and perhaps from the Kanto branch of the Kano school. This work is one of Shikibu's best known and is frequently sought for exhibitions and publications.