Crows and Egrets: Hasegawa Tōhaku's Late Vision in Ink
Two six-panel folding screens stand together. Across one, black crows wheel and drop through open space. Across the other, white egrets gather at a water's edge below an aging willow. Black set against white, restless flight set against quiet poise: this is Uro-zu, the Crows and Egrets screens by Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539–1610), painted in the closing years of his life.
Everything here is done in sumi ink on paper, without a single touch of color. The work dates to Keichō 10 (1605) or shortly after, when Tōhaku was in his sixties. Each screen runs about 154.5 by 355.5 centimeters, so the pair stretches close to seven meters once unfolded. In 1969 it was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan.
The crow and the egret rarely share a Japanese painting. Putting them on facing screens, one bird pure black and the other pure white, lets Tōhaku build an entire composition out of a contrast that needs no color to carry it.
The Painter and Why the Screens Were Designated
Tōhaku was born in 1539 in Nanao, in the Noto region of what is now Ishikawa Prefecture. He learned painting from his adoptive father and spent his early years producing Buddhist images along the Hokuriku coast under the name Nobuharu. At thirty-three he moved to Kyoto with his wife and child to make his name in the capital.
His decisive moment came around the age of fifty-one, with the ceiling and pillar paintings for the main gate of Daitoku-ji. Support from the tea master Sen no Rikyū and from Toyotomi Hideyoshi followed, and Tōhaku built a workshop bold enough to challenge the long-dominant Kanō school. By the time he turned to the Crows and Egrets, he had already completed the Pine Trees screen, now a National Treasure held at the Tokyo National Museum, and he painted with the ease of a master who had nothing left to prove.
When the screens were placed on the national designation list in 1969, they were recognized as a major work of his final period. They show a painter who had moved past the conventions of his training and was still testing how far ink alone could go. That combination, a securely attributed late work by one of the towering figures of Momoyama painting, is what earned the pair its standing as an Important Cultural Property.
Reading the Two Screens
The composition turns on one idea carried to its limit. On the right screen, an old willow leans over the water and a dozen egrets settle around it, each in a different attitude. One bird spreads its wings to lift off and looks almost ungainly in the attempt, an unstudied liveliness that the polished Kanō ink style seldom allowed. Three more egrets cross the sky overhead, drawn in a flatter, more stylized shape that reads almost as a pattern.
The crows on the facing screen are something else again. Worked in dense, dark ink, they cut through the empty paper with a strange weight, more presence than decoration. Viewers have long found them faintly unsettling, and that is part of their force.
The crow itself came to Tōhaku from China. He studied the Southern Song monk-painter Muqi closely, and where Muqi favored the black myna bird, Tōhaku reached for a bird closer to home. The wide expanses of bare paper, the dry and sparing brushwork, the restraint in every stroke all look back to that Chinese ink tradition, reworked into something distinctly his own.
Where to See Hasegawa Tōhaku's Work Today
One practical point matters before planning a visit: the Crows and Egrets screens are not on regular public view. For many years they were among the founding pieces of the collection at the DIC Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art in Sakura, Chiba. After that museum ended its display of Japanese painting, the pair passed in 2018 into the holdings of the Contemporary Art Foundation, associated with the collector Yusaku Maezawa. They remain in private hands and appear in public only on the rare occasion of a loan or special exhibition, so a trip to see this specific work cannot be planned in advance.
Travelers who want to stand before Tōhaku's ink painting have a far surer option in central Tokyo. The National Treasure Pine Trees screen, his most celebrated monochrome work, belongs to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno and is shown there for short periods, often around the New Year. It comes from the same late, pared-down vein as the Crows and Egrets and is the clearest way to meet his ink style in person.
In Kyoto, Chishaku-in keeps the brilliant gold-ground panels Tōhaku and his workshop painted for Shōun-ji, including the Maple panels, which show the opposite pole of his range. And in Nanao, his birthplace on the Noto Peninsula, the Ishikawa Nanao Art Museum holds early works and treats the painter as a local figure of pride. Together these places trace the arc of a career that ran from provincial Buddhist images to the front rank of Japanese painting.
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Q&A
- Can I see the Crows and Egrets screens in a museum right now?
- Not on a regular basis. The pair is privately held by the Contemporary Art Foundation and is not on permanent display. It surfaces only for occasional loans or special exhibitions, so check current exhibition listings rather than counting on seeing it.
- Why did Tōhaku paint crows alongside egrets?
- The pairing builds the whole work on a single contrast: a pure-black bird against a pure-white one, movement against stillness. The crow also reflects his study of the Chinese painter Muqi, whose black myna birds Tōhaku adapted into a bird familiar in Japan.
- How large is the work?
- It is a pair of six-panel folding screens, each about 154.5 by 355.5 centimeters. Set out together, the two screens span close to seven meters, so the birds appear at nearly life scale across a sweeping field of bare paper.
- When was it painted, and where does it fit in Tōhaku's career?
- It dates to 1605 or a little later, when Tōhaku was in his sixties. By then he had finished the National Treasure Pine Trees screen and reached a free, mature ink style, so the work counts among his important late paintings.
- If I cannot see this work, what should I visit instead?
- The National Treasure Pine Trees screen at the Tokyo National Museum is the best substitute, usually shown for a short window in early January. For his colored work, see the gold-ground panels at Chishaku-in in Kyoto.
Basic Information
| Name | Crows and Egrets (Uro-zu), ink on paper by Hasegawa Tōhaku, six-panel folding screens |
|---|---|
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (designated June 20, 1969; designation no. 01643) |
| Category | Painting |
| Artist | Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539–1610) |
| Date | Momoyama period; Keichō 10 (1605) or later |
| Format and count | Pair of six-panel folding screens (one pair); ink on paper, no color |
| Dimensions | About 154.5 × 355.5 cm each |
| Current holder | Contemporary Art Foundation (formerly DIC Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art); located in Tokyo |
| Public access | Not on regular public display; shown only at occasional loans or special exhibitions |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/201/2369
- Cultural Heritage Online (National Institutes for Cultural Heritage)
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/161285
- Bijutsu Techo: Yusaku Maezawa acquires Tōhaku's Crows and Egrets screens (formerly DIC Kawamura)
- https://bijutsutecho.com/magazine/news/headline/13857
- CINRA: Yusaku Maezawa acquires Hasegawa Tōhaku's late masterpiece Crows and Egrets
- https://www.cinra.net/news/20180412-maezawayusaku
Last verified: 2026.06.14