Operating on Guan Yu's Arm
1840s
Katsushika Ōi
Katsushika Ōi (Japanese, c. 1800-after 1857)
Japanese Art
Operating on Guan Yu's Arm, 1840s. Katsushika Ōi (Japanese, c. 1800-after 1857). Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk; mounted: 206.7 x 73.1 cm (81 3/8 x 28 3/4 in.); painting: 140.2 x 68.3 cm (55 3/16 x 26 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Kelvin Smith Fund 1998.178 Ukiyo-e artists’ subject matter extended to popular literature. Katsushika Ōi used color to great effect in her gruesome version of an episode from a 14th-century Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Ōi portrayed the passage in which legendary 3rd-century military leader Guan Yu undergoes a bone scraping to remove poisons received from an arrow wound. In this sensationalist portrayal, Guan Yu’s attendants cower at the sight of his bloody arm while he remains unflinchingly focused on his game. As a woman, Ōi was an outlier in her era, but her talent was allowed to shine due to collaboration with her father, Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), the famed designer of the print known as The Great Wave. This is the largest surviving painting by the artist.
- Maker/Artist
- Katsushika Ōi
- Classification
- Painting
- Formatted Medium
- hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk
- Dimensions
- Mounted: 206.7 x 73.1 cm (81 3/8 x 28 3/4 in.); Painting: 140.2 x 68.3 cm (55 3/16 x 26 7/8 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: 款記「應為栄女筆」 Translation: Signed: Brush of Ōi, the woman Ei Inscription: 「葛しか」白文方印 Translation: Sealed: Katsushika
- Departments
- Japanese Art
- Accession Number
- 1998.178
- Credit Line
- Kelvin Smith Fund
- Exhibitions
- Asian Games: The Art of Contest, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave, Japan's Floating World (Japanese art rotation) 235, <em>Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meisaku ten</em>. Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, Japan (January 19–26, 1957)., <em>Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meisaku ten: Orinpikku Tokyo taikai kinen [The exhibition of ukiyoe hand-paintings [sic]: In commemoration of the Tokyo Olympics]</em>. Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, Japan (October 8–18, 1964)., <em>Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Azabu bijutsukan shozo [Ukiyo-e Painting Masterpieces in the Collection of the Azabu Museum of Art]</em>. Sendai City Museum, Sendai, Japan (June 11–July 17, 1988); Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (September 6–October 9, 1988); Sogo Museum, Yokohama, Japan (October 20–November 13, 1988)., <em>Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten</em> [肉筆浮世絵名品展 = Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e painting]. Itabashi Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (April 8–May 7, 1989)., <em>Japanese Gallery 103 Rotation</em>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 20, 1998–March 15, 1999)., <em>Japanese Gallery 121 Rotation</em>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (May 4–August 11, 2000).
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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