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*''Japanese'': 雪舟等楊 ''(Sesshuu Touyou)''
*''Japanese'': 雪舟等楊 ''(Sesshuu Touyou)''
Sesshû Tôyô was one of the most famous/prominent ink landscape painters of the [[Muromachi period]].
Sesshû Tôyô was one of the most famous/prominent ink landscape painters of the [[Muromachi period]], and "perhaps the greatest name in the history of Japanese art."<ref name=screech>Timon Screech, ''Obtaining Images'', University of Hawaii Press (2012), 22.</ref>
A number of his paintings are signed ''Nihon zenjin Tôyô'' ("Tôyô, [[Zen]] man of Japan"); it is believed this may designate works composed while Sesshû was sojourning in China, in order to identify himself as Japanese, and distinguish his works from those composed by Chinese painters.<ref>Michyo Morioka and Paul Berry, ''Modern Masters of Kyoto'', Seattle Art Museum (2000), 19.</ref>
Sesshû was one of a very few prominent pre-modern Japanese painters who spent time in China, doing so in [[1468]]-[[1469]].<ref name=screech/> A number of his paintings are signed ''Nihon zenjin Tôyô'' ("Tôyô, [[Zen]] man of Japan"); it is believed this may designate works composed while Sesshû was sojourning in China, in order to identify himself as Japanese, and distinguish his works from those composed by Chinese painters.<ref>Michyo Morioka and Paul Berry, ''Modern Masters of Kyoto'', Seattle Art Museum (2000), 19.</ref>
Some legends have grown up around Sesshû, attesting to the greatness of his artistic skill. According to one such legend, while he was staying at a Buddhist temple in China, the abbot, punishing him for neglecting his other duties in favor of painting, tied him to a post. Crying, Sesshû realized that his tears mixed with the dust on the ground to form a paste he could shape; he then sketched several mice with his toes, doing so with such mastery that they came to life, like the dragons of [[Wu Daozi]] and [[Zhang Sengyou]], and gnawed the ropes, freeing the painter.<ref name=screech/>
Several of his works have been designated [[National Treasures]].
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