Moon Viewing, from The Tale of Heike (1700s): Art, History and Details

Moon Viewing, from The Tale of Heike (1700s) 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:

Drawing from Japanese literature, Yosa Buson copied almost the entire text of the “Moon Viewing” episode from The Tale of the Heike, a story of the rise and fall of the Taira family. The two characters he painted were given nicknames based on 31-syllable waka poems they composed. Seen from behind at the top is Matsuyoi, or “Waiting at Nightfall,” while the person striding below is Mono ka wa Kurando, roughly equivalent to “‘It’s Nothing’ Chamberlain.”

Object facts

• Title: Moon Viewing, from The Tale of Heike
• Date: 1700s
• Creator attribution: Yosa Buson (Japanese, 1716–1783)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink and light color on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 157.5 x 28.6 cm (62 x 11 1/4 in.); Painting only: 111.3 x 27.1 cm (43 13/16 x 10 11/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1971.233

A detail from the museum

The Tale of the Heike is a great historical romance written around 1240.

Collection credit

Sundry Purchase Fund

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.
• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.

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.