“Deer Beneath the Waterfall”

Maruyama Ōkyo

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Artist Name: Maruyama Ōkyo
Title: “Deer Beneath the Waterfall”
Dimensions: painting：96.9×26.3㎝
full length：181.2×39.8㎝
Medium: Ink and Gold on Silk
Year: 1781
Description: In the distant view, the waterfall is expressed by leaving areas of the paper unpainted, allowing the blank surface itself to suggest cascading water.
In the foreground, rocks beneath the falls and a pine tree are carefully rendered, beside which a young deer stands with its front legs gently crossed, its expression innocent and lively.

The deer appears poised to leap over the rocks at any moment, conveying a vivid sense of movement and playfulness beneath the waterfall.

This work was painted when Maruyama Okyo was forty-nine years old. Around this time, he began using the Minamoto (源) surname.

Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795) was a leading painter active in Kyoto during the mid to late Edo period.
While incorporating techniques from Chinese and Western painting, he established a style grounded in shasei (sketching from life), faithfully depicting the beauty of nature and the world as it appears.

His refined yet approachable manner of painting transformed the prevailing dominance of the Kanō school and led to the formation of the Maruyama school, which became the foundation of the modern Kyoto painting tradition.