Descent of the Nine Luminaries and the Seven Stars at Kasuga
Unknown Artist
mid- to late 1300s
Medium
Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold and cut gold on silk
Dimensions
painting only: 106 × 42 cm · mounted: 184.5 × 58.5 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Lillian M. Kern Memorial Fund
Accession Number
2015.63
About this artwork
This medieval religious painting shows celestial beings descending from the heavens into the Kasuga Shrine, a major religious site in Japan's ancient capital, Nara. The moon and the Kasuga mountain range appear in the uppermost portion of the painting, as does a red shrine entrance gate, or torii. In the upper part of the painting, figural representations of the stars in the constellation known as the Big Dipper in the West descend from right to left on cloud banks. In the lower part, the Nine L...