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Susuki Grass
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
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.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineSusuki Grass (芒野図屏風), c. 1525. Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573). Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper; overall: 150.3 x 348.8 cm (59 3/16 x 137 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1984.43
