CC0 · no rights reserved
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). One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper; image: 150.4 x 349.2 cm (59 3/16 x 137 1/2 in.); overall: 163.6 x 362.4 cm (64 7/16 x 142 11/16 in.); panel: 163.6 x 60.4 cm (64 7/16 x 23 3/4 in.); with frame: 166.8 x 365.6 cm (65 11/16 x 143 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1984.43.1
