The White Path Between Two Rivers
1200s
Maker Unknown
Japanese Art
The White Path Between Two Rivers, 1200s. Japan, Kamakura period (1185-1333). Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold, silver, and cut gold on silk; overall: 215.1 x 67.7 cm (84 11/16 x 26 5/8 in.); overall with knobs: 215.1 x 73.3 cm (84 11/16 x 28 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Norweb Foundation 1955.44 This painting is a visual presentation of a parable ascribed to the seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk Shandao. It describes the fraught journey to the west along a narrow path between a river of fire and a river of water. Along the way, the traveler is set upon by bandits and dangerous beasts, but is also guided by two friends. The story is an analogy for the journey out of the Six Realms of Transmigration to the Pure Land of the Buddha Amida. The Six Realms of Transmigration are the: heavenly realm, hells, human realm, animal realm, realm of hungry ghosts, and realm of fierce beings.
- Maker/Artist
- Maker Unknown
- Classification
- Painting
- Formatted Medium
- hanging scroll; ink, color, gold, silver, and cut gold on silk
- Dimensions
- Overall: 215.1 x 67.7 cm (84 11/16 x 26 5/8 in.); Overall with knobs: 215.1 x 73.3 cm (84 11/16 x 28 7/8 in.)
- Departments
- Japanese Art
- Accession Number
- 1955.44
- Credit Line
- Gift of The Norweb Foundation
- Exhibitions
- Japanese Decorative Style, Journey of the Three Jewels: Japanese Buddhist Paintings in Western Collections, Reflections of Reality in Japanese Art, Images of the Mind, Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cooperative Program of the Conservation of Japanese Art Objects in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art, Heaven and Hell: Salvation and Retribution in Pure Land Buddhism, <em>Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119)</em>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 12-July 16, 2003).
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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