Swift Bull from the Ten Swift Bulls
late 1200s–early 1300s
- Medium
- section of a handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and slight color on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 27.1 x 31.9 cm (10 11/16 x 12 9/16 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Across the world, animals once played a much larger role in the transportation of the elite. Members of Japan’s imperial court traveled in vehicles pulled by oxen until the late 1400s, when oxcarts were restricted to ceremonial use. One sign of the past importance of the ox as a status symbol survives in this fragment from a scroll of portraits of 10 speedy bulls. The painter layered washes containing differing ratios of black ink to water to create a three-dimensional effect.
