Bamboo and Rocks in Clearing Skies (mid-1700s): Art, History and Details

Bamboo and Rocks in Clearing Skies (mid-1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ike Taiga (Japanese, 1723–1776).

The work and its context

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

The title written on this screen corresponds to one on a design in Taiga’s Brush Methods (大雅堂画法). The concept conveyed is one of scenery and spirit refreshed by precipitation. In the screen, a rain-filled stream rushes from the mountains into a river. A village is nestled amid giant bamboo in the distance. A platform-like flat rock in the foreground invites us to step into the scene.

Object facts

• Title: Bamboo and Rocks in Clearing Skies
• Date: mid-1700s
• Creator attribution: Ike Taiga (Japanese, 1723–1776)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Two-panel folding screen; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 163.2 x 182.6 cm (64 1/4 x 71 7/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Folding screen
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1958.337

A detail from the museum

Ike Taiga ranks among the most creative painters of the Edo period: he produced over 1,000 compositions in various formats.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kokka 國華, no. 795 (June 1958).
• Suzuki Susumu, Matsushita Hidemaro, and Yoshizawa Tadashi. Ike Taiga sakuhinshū 池大雅作品集. Tōkyō, 東京: Chūō Kōron 中央公論美術出版, 1960 [Shōwa 35].
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.