Weasel amid Onion Heads, from the series "The Heart Sutra, Second Series (Tsuikai shingyo-sho)"
- Date:
- 1957 (printed 1967?)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Description
"Weasel amid Onion Heads" from the series "The Heart Sutra, Second Series (Tsuikai shingyo-sho)" — carved in 1957, printed perhaps in 1967 — places the quick, sinuous weasel among the rounded globes of onion tops in a composition of characteristic Munakata wit and formal intelligence. The Heart Sutra (Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra) is the most condensed expression of Mahayana Buddhist wisdom, and illustrating it with a weasel among onions seems deliberately incongruous — the sacred text and the mundane vegetable garden brought into productive collision. This is Munakata's folk sensibility at work: the sacred and the everyday interpenetrating, the sutra's wisdom as present among onion heads as in a monastery.
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Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Weasel amid Onion Heads, from the series "The Heart Sutra, Second Series (Tsuikai shingyo-sho)" was created by Shiko Munakata (棟方志功) in 1957 (printed 1967?).
Yes — Weasel amid Onion Heads, from the series "The Heart Sutra, Second Series (Tsuikai shingyo-sho)" is part of the The Heart Sutra, Second Series (Tsuikai shingyo-sho) series by Shiko Munakata.
Weasel amid Onion Heads, from the series "The Heart Sutra, Second Series (Tsuikai shingyo-sho)" depicts religious.