墨をたっぷりふくませた筆で、山や木、家をにじませるように描いた水墨画です。描いたのは室町時代の画僧・雪舟（せっしゅう）。1495年、76歳のときの作品で、国宝として東京国立博物館にあります。実物の掛け軸では、絵の上に長い文章と詩が書かれていますが、この画像は絵の部分だけです。

This ink painting shows mountains, trees and a house, painted with a brush full of ink so the shapes seem to blur. It is by Sesshū, a painter-monk of the Muromachi period. He made it in 1495, when he was 76. It is a National Treasure in the Tokyo National Museum. On the real scroll, long writings and poems sit above the painting, but this image shows only the painting.

上の文章は雪舟自身が書いたもので、弟子の宗淵（そうえん）が修行を終えて鎌倉の円覚寺に帰るとき、その証としてこの絵を贈ったことが記されています。雪舟は、中国の明にわたって学んだことや、日本では周文という画僧に学んだことなども書いています。絵は輪郭線をほとんど使わず、墨のこさとうすさだけで形を表しています。

Sesshū wrote the text above himself. It says he gave this painting to his student Sōen as proof of his training, when Sōen was going back to Engaku-ji temple in Kamakura. Sesshū also wrote that he had traveled to Ming China to study, and that in Japan he had learned from the painter-monk Shūbun. The painting uses almost no outlines. Shapes appear only through dark and light ink.

宗淵は鎌倉へ帰る途中で京都に立ちより、京都の名だたる寺の禅僧6人にたのんで、絵の上に詩を書いてもらいました。こうして一枚の絵が、師弟の物語と多くの人の言葉をのせた、特別な掛け軸になったのです。墨をにじませて形を生むこの描き方は、のちの日本の水墨画にも受けつがれていきました。

On his way back to Kamakura, Sōen stopped in Kyoto. He asked six Zen monks from Kyoto's great temples to write poems above the painting. In this way, one painting became a special scroll carrying the story of a teacher and student and the words of many people. This way of making shapes with spreading ink was passed on to later Japanese ink painters.