Now mounted as hanging scrolls, this pair of ink paintings were originally set into lacquered wood frames to serve as sliding doors in an upper-class Japanese residence or Buddhist temple of the sixteenth century. The artist is not known, but he was well trained in the Chinese-style ink painting techniques and themes that were popular in Japan at the time. The composition of the scene reads in the traditional manner from right to left across the two panels. The viewer's attention is thus immediately focused on the sharp contours of the mountain cliffs at the upper right and then gradually shifts downward with the movement of the waterfall to the frothy pool of water and narrow bridge. Emerging from behind the hills beyond the bridge is an elegant pavilion where a group of scholars are taking tea. A small grove of pines in the mist is punctuated by the pale moon above, as the scene that began so dramatically ends on a note of harmony and respite. Felice Fischer, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 41.