Demon Intoning the Name of the Buddha (1700s): Art, History and Details

Demon Intoning the Name of the Buddha (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Images like this one that depicts a demon in the guise of an itinerant monk intoning the name of the Buddha are called Otsu-e, or "Otsu paintings." Otsu-e were made as souvenirs for travelers passing through the station of Otsu along the Tokaido, the route stretching from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto. Realized through a combination of woodblock printing, rapid brushstrokes, embellishment with color and gold pigments by stencil or by hand, the earliest Otsu-e, produced in the 17th century, were Buddhist and Shinto icons. Later images included figures popular from Kabuki plays, as well as scenes illustrating parables.

Object facts

• Title: Demon Intoning the Name of the Buddha
• Date: 1700s
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll, ink and color on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 59.2 x 22.1 cm (23 5/16 x 8 11/16 in.); Including mounting: 126.4 x 33 cm (49 3/4 x 13 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1982.26

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ono, Tadashige 小野忠重. "On Ōtsu-e 大津絵考." Kobijutsu 古美術 March 1973, no. 33, pp. 46–66.
• Hauge, Victor, and Takako Hauge. Folk Traditions in Japanese Art. Washington: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1978.
• Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review for 1982.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 1 (1983): 3–55.

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.