When I started taking nitro to Asian art and found out that we were to write a paper about an Asian art piece at the Nelson-Atkins Museum I knew exactly what type of art work I wanted to write about and that would be a hanging scroll with ink on paper or silk. There were many beautifully crafted art pieces but there was one more noteworthy to me such as, Mori Tessan Deer on Rock.
Mori Tessan (alt. Tetsuzan) (1775–1841) was born in Osaka, and was the son of Mori Shuho, elder brother of Mori Sosen. He was adopted by Sosen and succeeded him. Tessan was taught by Shuho and Sosen and later became a pupil of Maruyama Okyo (1733 - 1795). Tessan was inspired by Okyo's sketching from life, and naturalistic painting. Tessan was especially good at human
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On closer inspection you see the heavy handed brush strokes on the rock in which your eyes are drawn there first and there appear to be seals and perhaps the artists name or the name of the painting written in the bottom right corner. Your eyes then travel up the deer’s legs in which some parts of the legs are not seen because of the thickness of the mist. On the right side of the deer there are sprigs of grass and pieces of rock projecting out of the ground. Your eyes are then drawn to the delicately brushed ink that makes the fur on the deer appear soft, and the outline of the antler that is closer to the viewer is darker than the one on the right also the ear is place in front of the antler for yet another natural touch. The spatial relation of the deer is superb with the rock placed in the foreground, the deer is in the middle ground and although very small compared to the rest of the composition the patch of rocks and sprigs of grass are there for the background it all brings a sense of depth to art