The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 5, 2023

Buddha of Infinite Life and Light (Amida Nyorai)

阿弥陀如来像

1269

Kōshun

(Japanese)

assistant Koshin

(Japanese)

assistant Joshun

(Japanese)

Japan, Kamakura period

(1185-1333)

Cypress wood with lacquer, color, gold, cut gold, rock crystal inlaid eyes, and quartz

Overall: 94.6 cm (37 1/4 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1960.197

Location

235B Japanese

Description

This ornate Buddha Amida stands in a posture of welcome, greeting the dying who will accompany him back to his Pure Land. Documents inserted into the sculpture’s hollow core around the time of its creation include a copy of the sacred text Amida Sutra, a register of donors who desired to be joined together in generating karmic merit (kechien) through the creation and dedication of the sculpture, and a record asserting that the image was completed over the course of 33 days in 1269 at Shitennōji Temple in Osaka. The lead sculptor was Kōshun, who had been granted the lofty title “Bridge of the Law.”

Provenance
by 1931 or 1941
Shitenno-ji Temple, Osaka, Japan 1
?-1960
(Mayuyama and Company, Tokyo, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1960-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

1 Ikeda Publ.: Ikeda Daisendo, Kobijutsu shuho, II (Kyoto, 1931), pls. 37, 38.
publication date either 1931 or 1941
Citations
Ikeda, Shōtarō 池田庄太郎. Ikeda Daisendō kobijutsu shūhō 池田大仙堂古美術集芳. Ōsaka: Ikeda Shōtarō, 1941. Reproduced: pls. 37, 38
Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review| 1960.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 47, no. 10, 1960, pp. 223–254. Mentioned: no. 19, p. 251; Reproduced: p. 232 www.jstor.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 275 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 275 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 371 archive.org
Lee, Sherman E., Michael R. Cunningham, and Ursula Korneitchouk. One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650): From the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Japan Society, 1981. Reproduced: cat. no. 11, p. 31
Yoshiyasu, Tanaka, Kimiko Steiner, and Michael R. Cunningham. "The Statue of Amida Nyorai (Amitabha) Made by Kōshun." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 10 (1993): 378-93. Reproduced: cover, p. 379-81; Mentioned: pp. 378-393 www.jstor.org
"Reopening of the Asian Galleries at The Cleveland Museum of Art: An Interview with David Franklin." Orientations: The Magazine for Collectors and Connoisseurs of Asian Art, vol. 44, no. 8 (November/December 2013): pp. 60-63. Reproduced: p. 61
Dobbins, James C. Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 8-9, fig. 5
Exhibition history

One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650) from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Japan House Gallery, New York, NY (March 19-May 17, 1981).

Year in Review - Nineteen Hundred Sixty. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 30, 1960-January 1, 1961).

Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art (September 11-October 10, 1965).

Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009).

Japanese Gallery 235 Rotation - July 2017-January 2018. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (July 15, 2017-January 2, 2018).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1960.197