Cleveland Museum of Art

Koto from the series The Six Arts in Fashionable Guise

Date

c. 1793–96

Medium

Color woodblock print; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Chinese classical education consisted of the Six Arts: performing rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. The Chinese qin, a stringed musical instrument in the zither family, customarily symbolizes the art of music. In this print a similar Japanese instrument, the koto, replaces the qin. The fashionable Japanese entertainer playing it stands in for an accomplished Chinese scholar.

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