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Irises
Watanabe Shikō (Japanese, 1683–1755)
early-mid 1700s
- Medium
- pair of six-panel folding screens, ink and color on gilded paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting (each): 154.4 x 360.4 cm (60 13/16 x 141 7/8 in.); Mounted (each): 170.7 x 376.7 cm (67 3/16 x 148 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Gift of The Norweb Foundation
- 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
The subject of this painting comes from a 10th-century text. It tells of a young nobleman’s journey into the lonely countryside, far from the capital city of Heian-kyō (Kyoto). There he came upon a small stream, the banks of which were covered with blooming irises, on which the artist has chosen to focus our attention. While viewing the beautiful flowers the nobleman composed a poem:
I have a beloved wife, Familiar as the skirt of a well-worn robe, And so this distant journeying Fills my heart with grief.
