Heart Sutra and Landscape

mid 18th century · Paintings, Calligraphy

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Heart Sutra and Landscape” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Minneapolis, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the painting

Ike Taiga was a professional painter who employed the purposefully amateurish styles of hugely admired scholar-painters from Chinese antiquity. Taiga assimilated and modified Chinese painting modes like his predecessors had, but he also synthesized what he learned, experimenting with compositional formulas and brushwork to create new and viable styles that were uniquely Japanese. With Taiga, Japanese Nanga painting reached maturity during the third quarter of the 1700s.

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For this painting he used a relatively dry brush to paint a landscape in the lower right corner in a style related to that of the Chinese painter Ni Zan (1306–74). It shows a scholar and servants in a boat floating on a river between a foreground of rocky outcroppings and a grove of gangly trees and mountains in the distance. The rest of the scroll is filled with the three hundred Chinese characters that make up the entire text of the short Buddhist scripture commonly known as the Heart Sutra.

Minneapolis Institute of Art