Farmer Returning Home in Autumn (1781): Art, History and Details

Farmer Returning Home in Autumn (1781) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Yosa Buson (Japanese, 1716–1783).

The work and its context

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

Here, Yosa Buson’s farmer playfully chastises a crow who has come to dine on his grain while his water buffalo earnestly negotiates a swift stream. Raised in what is now Osaka, Buson went to Edo (now Tokyo) to study poetry composition. He later traveled around northeastern Japan, following in the footsteps of poet Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉) (1644–1694), and then taught poetry in Kyoto. He painted professionally, a skill he learned by using wood-block–printed Chinese painting manuals.

Object facts

• Title: Farmer Returning Home in Autumn
• Date: 1781
• Creator attribution: Yosa Buson (Japanese, 1716–1783)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and light color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 203.2 x 59.2 cm (80 x 23 5/16 in.); Painting only: 130.8 x 46.2 cm (51 1/2 x 18 3/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1970.77

A detail from the museum

The man keeps his feet dry by crossing over the bridge while the water buffalo pulls the cart through the stream.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Takakusu, Junjirō. Selected Relics of Japanese Art. Edited by Shiichi Tajima. Kyoto: Nippon Bukkyo Shimbi Kyôkwai, 1908.
• Murayama Jungo 村山旬吾. Nangashū 南畫集. Tōkyō: Kokkasha, 1910.
• Okada Saburōsuke 岡田三郎助, Sasagawa Rinpū 笹川臨風, and Iizuka Yoneame 飯塚米雨. Nihonga taisei 日本畫大成. Vol. 9 Nansōha 南宗派. Tōkyō: Tōhō Shoin, 1934.

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.