Susuki Grass
Unknown Artist
c. 1525
Medium
One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
Dimensions
163.6 × 362.4 cm · image: 150.4 × 349.2 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1984.43.1
About this artwork
Susuki grass has a seasonal association with autumn in the Japanese visual and literary tradition. It is one of the “Seven Flowers of Autumn,” along with bush clover, arrowroot, pink, patrinia, mistflower, and bellflower. This composition immerses the beholder in a field of grasses and golden bands of mist. The design may have served as a backdrop for poems brushed in calligraphy on decorated papers and attached to the surface of the screens.