Forbidden to the Vulgar (late 1800s-early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Forbidden to the Vulgar (late 1800s-early 1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Uragami Gyokudō (Japanese, 1745–1820).

The work and its context

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

Gyokudo painted in the Nanga style (literary men's school of painting), originally influenced by 18th-century Chinese painting. Most of his landscapes are variations on the theme of tall mountains and remote huts. Note the spontaneity of the brushstrokes and how the dry, rough ink works with the texture of the paper. Born to an ancient samurai family, Gyokudo was trained in the Chinese classics and studied painting, poetry, and the koto (kind of zither). He devoted himself to art and music, painting, drinking, and playing the koto as he wandered about the country.

Object facts

• Title: Forbidden to the Vulgar
• Date: late 1800s-early 1900s
• Creator attribution: Uragami Gyokudō (Japanese, 1745–1820)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink on paper
• Dimensions: With mount: 67.2 cm (26 7/16 in.); Painting only: 134.6 x 51.1 cm (53 x 20 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1964.367

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Miyake Kyūnosuke 三宅久之助. Gyokudō 浦上玉堂眞蹟集 [Collection of Authentic Works by Urakami Gyokudō]. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1955–58.
• “Year in Review for 1964.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 51, no. 10 (December 1964): 236–266.
• 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.