Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (early 1300s): Art, History and Details

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (early 1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Among Japan’s greatest poets, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro’s (c. 660–724) portrait was often displayed at poetry competitions. Here, he gazes up at a falling cherry blossom, his writing box before him, brush and paper in his hands. A short biography and one of his poems are inked on painted rectangles meant to look like decorated papers. The first part of the poem has been mostly lost, but from what remains, it is possible to recognize it as Dimly, dimly in the morning mist that lies over Akashi Bay, my longings follow with the ship that vanishes behind the distant isle. —Translated by Robert H. Bower and Earl Roy Miner

Object facts

• Title: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
• Date: early 1300s
• Culture: Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 107.6 x 39 cm (42 3/8 x 15 3/8 in.); Mounted: 174.4 x 55 cm (68 11/16 x 21 5/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1977.203

A detail from the museum

The landscapes at the top and bottom of the painting depict Akashi Bay, with its famous pines along the shore, and a lone figure in a boat.

Collection credit

Gift of Herbert F. Leisy in memory of his wife, Helen Stamp Leisy

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tōyō kaiga no seika: tokubetsuten: Kurīvurando Bijutsukan no korekushon kara [東洋絵画の精華: 特别展: クリーヴラント美術館のコレクションから= Highlights of Asian painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art]. Nara, Japan: Nara National Museum, 1998.
• Levine, Gregory P. A., Andrew Mark Watsky, Gennifer S. Weisenfeld, and Yoshiaki Shimizu. Crossing the Sea: Essays on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Yoshiaki Shimizu. Princeton, NJ: P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Dept. of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 2012.

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.