Gibbons Reaching for the Moon (1600s): Art, History and Details

Gibbons Reaching for the Moon (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kano Tan’yū (Japanese, 1602–1674).

The work and its context

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

Long-armed gibbons form a chain to reach down from a tree, hoping to touch what they believe is the moon. In fact, the orb remaining beyond their grasp is the full moon’s reflection in the still surface of a pond or lake. The image is a common metaphor for the deluded mind in Buddhist thought. Gibbons do not live in Japan but were known to Japanese painters of the premodern era through paintings brought from China.

Object facts

• Title: Gibbons Reaching for the Moon
• Date: 1600s
• Creator attribution: Kano Tan’yū (Japanese, 1602–1674)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and light color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 170 x 33.9 cm (66 15/16 x 13 3/8 in.); Overall with knobs: 234 x 40.1 cm (92 1/8 x 15 13/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2015.478

Collection credit

Gift from the Collection of George Gund III

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.