{
"data": {
"id": 146143,
"accession_number": "1971.43",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Scenes from Essays in Idleness (\u5f92\u7136\u8349\u56f3\u5c4f\u98a8), late 1700s\u2013early 1800s. Matsumura Goshun (Japanese, 1752\u20131811). Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, 1971.43",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Scenes from Essays in Idleness",
"title_in_original_language": "\u5f92\u7136\u8349\u56f3\u5c4f\u98a8",
"creation_date": "late 1700s\u2013early 1800s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1780,
"creation_date_latest": 1811,
"artists_tags": [
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],
"culture": [
"Japan, Edo period (1615\u20131868)"
],
"technique": "Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Japanese Art",
"collection": "ASIAN - Folding screen",
"type": "Painting",
"dimensions": {
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"width": 3.307,
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},
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"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": null,
"inscription_translation": "One morning, when a beautiful blanket of snow covered the ground, I had something on my mind concerning a friend, so I decided to write her a letter. I didn't mention the snow in the letter. In her reply, she wrote, \"What did you think of this morning's beautiful snow? You didn't write a word about it. Why should I have anything to do with such an unrefined person?\"\nI thought this reply was admirable, and although the lady died many years ago, her letter is still unforgettable to me. \n(Excerpt from \"Essays in Idleness\" translated by Donald Keene)",
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"inscription": null,
"inscription_translation": "In Kyushu there was a certain person who served as an oryoshi [a government officer who controls thieves and robbers in outlying districts]. He believed that the radish was an excellent herb for preventing illness, and for many years, he cooked and ate two of them every morning. \nOne day his enemies waited for an opportunity when no one was in his residence, attacked without warning, and surrounded him. Just then two samurai appeared and, fighting without regard for their own lives, repulsed the attackers. The oryoshi thought this very strange and inquired, \"I have never seen you before; may I ask who you are?\" They answered, \"We are the spirits of the radish, which you ate and believed in for so long a time,\" and disappeared into the air. \nIf you believe in things deeply, such occurrences are entirely possible. \n(Excerpt from \"Essays in Idleness\" translated by Donald Keene)",
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"inscription": null,
"inscription_translation": "Seinen, a high priest of the Saidai-ji in Nara, was an old man. Bent with age, eyes framed by whitened eyebrows, he had the appearance of a man of fine character. One day when he appeared at court, Lord Saionji took noticed of Seinen and rematked, \"How refined he looks.\" Consequently, he treated the old priest with the utmost respect. Observing this, Lord Tadatomo remarked, \"Oh, it is only because of his age that you behave like this.\" \nA short while later, Lord Tadatomo brought an old scraggly looking dog whose hair was gradually falling out to Lord Saionji and said, \"There, doesn't this dog look fine too?\" \n(Excerpt from \"Essays in Idleness\" translated by Donald Keene)",
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"inscription": null,
"inscription_translation": "There was a time when a fox lived in the Imperial Palace grounds. Lord Fujii, the chief councilor of state, told the following story about it. As a group of men were playing Go one day, the rattan blinds were raised slightly, as if someone were trying to secretly watch the game. Seeing this, one of the players asked, \"Who is it?\" and looking more carefully saw a fox standing just like a human outside the curtains, peeking in. The players raised quite a fuss shouting, \"My goodness! It's a fox!\" and flex in a great hurry. It must have been a fox that had failed in its attempt to assume human form. \n(Excerpt from \"Essays in Idleness\" translated by Donald Keene)",
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 301427,
"title": "Year in Review: 1971",
"description": "Year in Review: 1971. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1971-February 6, 1972).",
"opening_date": "1971-12-28T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 302380,
"title": "Japanese Screens from the Museum and Cleveland Collections",
"description": "Japanese Screens from the Museum and Cleveland Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-May 8, 1977).",
"opening_date": "1977-03-23T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309844,
"title": "Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen",
"description": "Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 1-October 14, 1984).",
"opening_date": "1984-08-01T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310026,
"title": "Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen",
"description": "Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1987-January 10, 1988).",
"opening_date": "1987-12-08T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311497,
"title": "Asian Autumn: Splendid Variety: 18th-Century Art in Japan",
"description": "Asian Autumn: Splendid Variety: 18th-Century Art in Japan. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1993-March 6, 1994).",
"opening_date": "1993-11-16T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 185596,
"title": "Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001).",
"opening_date": "2001-07-15T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 374889,
"title": "Stories in Japanese Art",
"description": "Stories in Japanese Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 8, 2021-April 3, 2022).",
"opening_date": "2021-10-08T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Mathias Komor [1909\u20131984], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131971",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1971\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": "Matsumura Goshun inscribed passages from Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenk\u014d\u2019s (1283\u20131350) well-known collection of anecdotes, Essays in Idleness, across the top of each of the twelve panels of this pair of screens. Goshun illustrated the episodes with his vision of the figures who feature in them. The texts cascade down from right to left, forming unique compositional relationships with the images below.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60471899"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1971.43-scenes-from-essays-i"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cunningham, Michael R. Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 60\u201361, cat. no. 27",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "So\u0306n, Su\u0306ng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. 29a and 29b",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1971.43",
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"creditline": "Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 146143,
"creators": [
{
"id": 6178,
"description": "Matsumura Goshun (Japanese, 1752\u20131811)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": "\u677e\u6751\u5449\u6625",
"birth_year": "1752",
"death_year": "1811",
"use_in_caption": true,
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],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1971-05-13T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1780,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "late 1700s\u2013early 1800s",
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"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Scenes from \"Essays in Idleness\"",
"Essays in Idleness"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:50:39.542000"
}
}