Sōgyō Hachiman
10th century
- Medium
- Wood with traces of white pigment
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 53.3 × 46.4 cm (21 × 18 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Gift of the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This work is believed to be part of a group of sculptures produced by one studio around the same time, possibly for a processional ritual. The literal meaning of its title is “Hachiman in the guise of a monk.” The cult of the Shinto deity Hachiman originated at Usa in northeast Kyushu, a site relatively close to the Korean peninsula and also a prominent early Buddhist center. Buddhism had been introduced into Japan in the 6th century, and monks became one of the most recognizable symbols of its practice. Hachiman’s “guise” reflects the melding of Buddhist and indigenous Shinto beliefs into a shared iconography.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
