Detail: Museum founder Charles Lang Freer’s
taste for Japanese art grew out of his
affection for American tonalist
paintings. This intimate exhibition
illuminates this connection by
juxtaposing landscapes by American
artist Thomas Dewing (1851–1938) with
Japanese works that Freer acquired in
the late 1890s, just after his first
tour of Asia. Freer’s idealized notions
of “old Japan” paralleled the nostalgic,
pastoral aestheticism of Dewing’s
atmospheric landscapes. Dewing often
acted as Freer’s buying agent at the New
York branch of Yamanaka and Company,
helping his patron select Japanese
prints, hanging scrolls, and screens
that both reflected and affected his own
artistic production. On view are such
Edo-period works as Moon over a Moor
alongside Dewing’s paintings, including
the exhibition’s namesake, The Four
Sylvan Sounds.