Tomioka Tessai was one of the giants of modern Japan, though his style is wholly rooted in Edo period painting. Tessai was a bunjinga painter, that is, a painter in the literary men's style of painting that takes as its inspiration Ming literati painting. He lived in Kyoto and had no particular painting teacher, though he was well-schooled in Japanese and Chinese religion and literature. Tessai's works are marked by his free and individualistic handling of ink and brush that invests his painting with marvelous energy. His themes, such as in this painting, are typically bunjin--either landscape views peopled by contemplative scholars or themes taken from Chinese or Japanese history and legend. In view of the great changes sweeping Japan and Japanese art following the Meiji Restoration, Tessai's work is fundamentally conservative, yet the unique perspective he brings to that work, and the vitality of brush and vision, make his work very popular in the modern world.