Gōchō

Japanese painter active in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, Gōchō is known only through the scroll painting One Silence Like a Clap of Thunder. The work shows a broad, inky void split by a single jagged streak of gold lightning striking a distant mountain’s ridgeline. The mountain itself is left blank—just pale silk—so the lightning’s flash becomes the entire drama. If you want to see how a lone bolt can fill a whole sky, tap the scroll’s title to view it full-screen.