Mandala of the Three Shrines at Kumano
1300s
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Image: 134 x 62 cm (52 3/4 x 24 7/16 in.); Overall: 217.2 x 80 cm (85 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333) to Nanbokuchō period (1336–92)
- 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
- 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This painting depicts the three shrines of Kumano from a bird’s-eye perspective, with the Buddhist counterparts of the kami of each shrine hall shown in discs directly above the halls. It also features figures, both pilgrims and deities, along the pilgrimage route and at the shrines. It is the only surviving work illustrating architectural representations of all three shrines in the same painting. They are compressed into a stacked composition, with the Nachi shrine at the top, the Shingū in the middle, and the Hongū at the bottom.
