Landscape
Nakamura Fusetsu (1866–1943)
Hanging Scroll, Ink and color on silk
This hanging scroll by Nakamura Fusetsu depicts a mountainous landscape viewed across an expanse of water. A small boat rests among reeds in the immediate foreground, while a wooded promontory rises at right. Across the water stands a lakeside pavilion surrounded by autumn foliage. Beyond it, monumental peaks ascend through layers of mist, their upper slopes gradually dissolving into the pale silk.
The composition develops through a series of alternating densities. Dark rocks, trees, and the moored boat anchor the lower right, while the unpainted water creates a broad interval before the eye reaches the distant pavilion. Behind it, low hills form a transitional zone between the inhabited foreground and the immense mountains above. Mist interrupts the landscape at several levels, separating near and far while allowing the pictorial space to remain open and breathable.
The foreground contains the work’s strongest ink. The shoreline is built from broad, dry strokes laid at changing angles, while the trees rise through abrupt turns and compact clusters of leaves. Small accents of green, blue, ocher, and red enliven the foliage without disturbing the primacy of ink. The empty boat is described through several heavy, angular lines. Its blunt contours and sharply raised prow give this otherwise modest detail an almost sculptural weight.
The lakeside pavilion is similarly constructed from firm horizontal and vertical strokes. Its architectural lines are not mechanically ruled: they thicken, narrow, pause, and turn according to the movement of the brush. The building therefore belongs to the same calligraphic system as the rocks and trees. Architecture, vegetation, and landscape are not rendered through separate descriptive languages; all are formed from the disciplined energy of the written line.
Most remarkable is the treatment of the mountains. The principal peak is established through heavy contours, squared turns, dragged strokes, and repeated vertical abrasions. Its surface appears weathered and monumental, like characters cut into an ancient stone stele. Some lines press deeply into the silk; others move slowly with a dry, resistant texture before breaking apart. Pale washes soften the interior planes, but the mountain’s structure depends upon the strength and weight of the brush.
This handling reveals the profound impact of Chinese beixue, or Stele School calligraphy, upon Fusetsu’s painting. The Stele School valued the archaic force of inscriptions carved into stone, especially those associated with the Northern Dynasties. Its visual language favored angular structures, blunt attacks, uneven pressure, deliberate friction, and a sense of physical resistance. Fusetsu translates these qualities directly into landscape. The mountain contours resemble monumental characters; the branches turn like forceful horizontal and vertical strokes; even the small pavilion possesses the compact structure of a written form.
The painting therefore gives renewed meaning to the traditional East Asian principle that calligraphy and painting share a common source. The connection is not merely theoretical. Every rock, tree, roofline, and mountain ridge is generated through calligraphic movement. Fusetsu does not first describe an object and then add expressive brushwork to it: the movement of the brush creates the object itself.
At the same time, the painting reflects the breadth of Fusetsu’s artistic education. He studied both nanga and Western-style oil painting and spent four years in France. The strong recession from the foreground boat to the distant mountains, together with the controlled use of muted color, suggests his familiarity with Western approaches to atmosphere and spatial depth. Yet the work’s essential structure remains East Asian, grounded in ink, calligraphy, reserve, and the expressive life of the line.
Fusetsu’s engagement with Chinese calligraphy was inseparable from his activity as a scholar and collector. During the First Sino-Japanese War, he acquired a copy of the Chunhua Ge Tie, an important anthology of model calligraphy. He subsequently assembled a major collection of Chinese inscriptions, manuscripts, and calligraphic materials, including documents associated with Dunhuang and Turfan. In 1936, he established the Calligraphy Museum at his Tokyo residence to preserve and display this collection.
As Aida Yuen Wong has demonstrated, Fusetsu’s promotion of a Chinese-influenced Stele School style formed an important part of the reform of calligraphy in modern Japan. This landscape shows that the reform extended beyond written characters. The archaic strength of stele calligraphy became a pictorial language capable of constructing mountains, trees, buildings, and an entire natural world.
Signed “Fusetsu hitsu” at upper right. With two seals reading “Master of Kōkotei” and “Gentle as a Pure Breeze”.
Image: 50 1/2 × 16 1/4 inches (128.3 × 41.3 cm).
Scroll: 77 × 22 inches (195.6 × 55.9 cm).
This work was featured in the special exhibition Time Well Wasted: Five Hundred Years of Japanese Ink Painting, held at Michaan’s Auctions from August 16 to 21, 2026, and is illustrated on page 91-94 of the accompanying book by Jingwei Zeng.
References
- Aida Yuen Wong, “Reforming Calligraphy in Modern Japan: The Six Dynasties School and Nakamura Fusetsu’s Chinese-Influenced ‘Stele’ Style,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 40, no. 3 (September 2010): 485–511
- Taito City Arts and Culture Foundation, “Calligraphy Museum.”
For condition report and additional photos, please contact the Asian Art Department.
