Furuna (Purnamaitrayaniputra), from the series "Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi)"

Furuna (Purnamaitrayaniputra), 1968, is a Buddhist woodblock print by Shiko Munakata depicting one of the Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni Buddha. Shown standing in robes with hands raised in a teaching gesture, Purnamaitrayaniputra was renowned as the foremost preacher among the disciples, celebrated for his ability to communicate the Dharma in remote regions. This impression, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, belongs to the late reissue of one of the most celebrated bodies of work by the sosaku-hanga master, originally conceived in 1939 and revised across decades. Munakata first carved the Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) as a series of two-panel hangings, then reworked the figures repeatedly until his death in 1975; the 1968 cuttings are particularly admired for their large scale and confident calligraphic line. The composition shows Munakata's signature reduction of the human form to a few thick, decisive black strokes, with white reserved areas suggesting drapery rather than describing it. The figure is rendered as if seen from below, monumental and frontal, an iconographic memory of medieval Japanese Buddhist statuary translated into woodcut. The disciple's eyes and mouth are reduced to flickering marks, an effect Munakata achieved by working directly on the block with a small knife rather than transferring a drawing. The Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples is the work that earned Munakata first prize at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1955 and the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale in 1956, the first prints by any Japanese artist to win those honors. As a devout follower of Pure Land Buddhism, Munakata treated each disciple not as portrait but as an act of devotion, calling himself a humble servant to the wood and the spirit it contained.