Cleveland Museum of Art

Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals of the Buddhist Clergy

Date

late 1300s–1400s

Medium

Fragment of a handscroll remounted as a hanging scroll; ink and slight color on paper

Culture

Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Handscrolls depicting eminent poets and their poems is a classic Japanese painting genre. This fragment is the end of a scroll, the beginning of which survives in the Tokyo National Museum. It has a preface stating it is based on a selection of 36 monks paired with their waka (31-syllable poems) made by Eikai (1278–1347) from Kashūji temple in the year of his death. These two portraits are of Jōkei (1155–1212) and Myōe (1173–1232), to the right and left, respectively. The monk Myōe kept a diary of his dreams that survives in fragments today.

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