Female Shinto Deity
12th century
- Medium
- Wood with traces of polychromy
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 25 × 17 × 10.8 cm (9 7/8 × 6 3/4 × 4 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Purchased with Funds Provided by the Weston Foundation; Alsdorf Acquisition Fund; Russell Tyson Endowment Fund; President's Exhibition and Acquisition Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, female deities play an equally important role as their male counterparts. The earliest surviving sculptures of female Shinto deities date to the ninth century, and they often form a set with a depiction of the male deity Hachiman, the god of war. The goddesses’ identities are inexact, and such sculptures show a generic woman of the imperial court in secular dress.
Here the deity’s stiff pose and blocklike shape recall other sculptures of this type, but her softened facial features and placid expression make it apparent that the artist was very skilled.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
