Irises
The subject of this painting comes from a 10th-century text. It tells of a young nobleman’s journey into the lonely countryside, far from the capital city of Heian-kyō (Kyoto). There he came upon a small stream, the banks of which were covered with blooming irises, on which the artist has chosen to focus our attention. While viewing the beautiful flowers the nobleman composed a poem:I have a beloved wife, Familiar as the skirt of a well-worn robe, And so this distant journeying Fills my heart with grief.
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1700s
- Dimensions
- painting: height 1.544 m, width 3.604 m; overall: height 1.667 m, width 3.726 m; closed: height 1.708 m, width 0.645 m, depth 0.12 m; panel (each): height 1.667 m, width 0.621 m; mounted: height 1.707 m, width 3.767 m
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Gift of The Norweb Foundation
Art Genome Taxonomy
9 tags
Subject Matter
-
Flora Both · 99%
The title is “Irises,” the catalog identifies blooming irises as the subject, and numerous iris blossoms are directly visible across the screen.
Visual Qualities
-
Asymmetrical Visual · 95%
Iris clusters vary in size, density, and placement across the horizontal screen, creating an uneven distribution of motifs and open gold areas.
-
Patterns Visual · 87%
Repeated leaves and blossoms establish a decorative rhythm, and the blue ornamental border contains a repeating pattern.
Medium and Techniques
-
Painting Metadata · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art classifies the object as a painting.
-
Work on Paper Metadata · 99%
The catalog lists the medium as ink and color on gilded paper.
-
Gold Leaf and Gilding Both · 99%
The catalog specifies gilded paper, and the image visibly shows an extensive warm reflective-gold ground.
-
Screen Format Metadata · 99%
The work is identified as one of a pair of six-panel folding screens; the supplied image shows six joined vertical panels.
Time Periods
-
18th Century Art Metadata · 98%
The work is dated to the 1700s; the artist’s dates and the cataloged date range place it in the eighteenth century.
Geographic Regions
-
Japanese Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the artist as Japanese and gives the place of origin as Japan during the Edo period.
Source & rights
Watanabe Shikō (Japanese, 1683–1755). Irises. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 25,680 × 11,732 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available