A Heavenly General (One of the Junishinshō) (1200s): Art, History and Details

A Heavenly General (One of the Junishinshō) (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This figure is one of 12 generals made to protect a statue of the Medicine Buddha, an important healing figure in Buddhism. He wears Chinese armor. This shows that Japanese artists often drew from Chinese art for their designs. They believed that using these existing models gave the statue powerful spiritual properties. Japanese sculptors linked each general to a Chinese zodiac animal. The horse on this general’s head corresponds to the Year of the Horse and a time of day associated with the horse. How is this general similar or different from other protectors or guardians you might know?

Object facts

• Title: A Heavenly General (One of the Junishinshō)
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Wood with lacquer, color, gold, and crystal eyes
• Dimensions: 117.2 cm (46 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1988.53

A detail from the museum

A fierce facial expression warns us not to cross this protective deity.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “The Year in Review for 1988.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 76, no. 2, 1989, pp. 30–75.
• Grossman, Nancy, James T. Ulak, Marjorie Williams, and Laurence Channing. Art of Japan: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2005.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.