Scenes from Essays in Idleness
Matsumura Goshun (Japanese, 1752–1811)
late 1700s–early 1800s
Medium
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper
Dimensions
170.2 × 375.8 cm · image: 146.5 × 330.7 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1971.43
Tags
male
About this artwork
Matsumura Goshun inscribed passages from Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō’s (1283–1350) well-known collection of anecdotes, Essays in Idleness, across the top of each of the twelve panels of this pair of screens. Goshun illustrated the episodes with his vision of the figures who feature in them. The texts cascade down from right to left, forming unique compositional relationships with the images below.