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Birds and Flowers (c. 1420–1506)

The influences of Sesshū's studies in China are reflected in two famous hanging scrolls of seasonal landscape paintings of birds and flowers, painted in ink and colour on silk, in the Perry Collection. Sesshū paints assertive rock contours and textures using a wet brush with splitting hairs. This brings a scratchy, rough texture to give the rocks a sense of solidity and tangibility. Such technique can be seen in the Four Landscape Scrolls of the Seasons Autumn and Winter landscapes. As a recurring motif in Sesshū's landscapes, the rock is trapezoidal with two indentations on top. Like in Winter Landscape, Sesshū uses a zigzag, or lighting shape to contribute to the composition's structure. Within this composition, Sesshū flattens space using spatial ambiguities and variations in scale. Sesshū's contrast in scale creates an illusion similar to the Zen notion of zero time and space, where there are no distinctions between past, present or future. Compositionally, there is no distinction between the whole image and the subjects that make it. Sesshū purposefully controls tonal intensities to suggest atmospheric perspective through subtle ink gradations for the mist to evoke poetic autumnal feelings.