Cleveland Museum of Art

Susuki Grass

Date

c. 1525

Medium

Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper

Culture

Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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 ink on decorated papers and attached to the surface of the screens, a practice with a long tradition in Japan. The botanical name for susuki grass is miscanthus.

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