Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni
About This Series
Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni gathers impressions of the disciple figures from Shiko Munakata's celebrated cycle Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi, the work that secured his international reputation when it received the Print Prize at the 1955 Sao Paulo Biennale and the Grand Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale. In the complete cycle the bodhisattvas Monju (Manjushri) and Fugen (Samantabhadra) flank the ten foremost disciples of the historical Buddha, Shariputra, Maudgalyayana, Mahakashyapa, Subhuti, Purna, Katyayana, Aniruddha, Upali, Rahula, and Ananda, each represented as a tall standing figure carved directly into yamazakura cherry block in Munakata's ita-e manner. The cycle originated in 1939 in the figural style Munakata had developed after his decisive turn from oil painting to woodblock in the early 1930s, and was recarved across the 1940s and 1950s after wartime destruction of the original blocks, the artist refining the iconography of each disciple through successive states. Each disciple is set frontally in a columnar format and printed in sumi on washi, the densely worked ground filled with swirling calligraphic line and the seal-script inscription of the disciple's name in Munakata's idiosyncratic hand; many impressions are completed by uragashin verso-coloring, in which mineral pigments applied to the back of the translucent paper diffuse forward as soft tints of vermilion, ochre, and indigo. Impressions of individual disciples and of the complete cycle are documented in the Munakata Shiko Memorial Hall in Aomori, the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Cleveland Museum of Art among other principal museum collections.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni gathers impressions of the disciple figures from Shiko Munakata's celebrated cycle Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi, the work that secured his international reputation when it received the Print Prize at the 1955 Sao Paulo Biennale and the Grand Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale. In the complete cycle the bodhisattvas Monju (Manjushri) and Fugen (Samantabhadra) flank the ten foremost disciples of the historical Buddha, Shariputra, Maudgalyayana, Mahakashyapa, Subhuti, Purna, Katyayana, Aniruddha, Upali, Rahula, and Ananda, each represented as a tall standing figure carved directly into yamazakura cherry block in Munakata's ita-e manner. The cycle originated in 1939 in the figural style Munakata had developed after his decisive turn from oil painting to woodblock in the early 1930s, and was recarved across the 1940s and 1950s after wartime destruction of the original blocks, the artist refining the iconography of each disciple through successive states. Each disciple is set frontally in a columnar format and printed in sumi on washi, the densely worked ground filled with swirling calligraphic line and the seal-script inscription of the disciple's name in Munakata's idiosyncratic hand; many impressions are completed by uragashin verso-coloring, in which mineral pigments applied to the back of the translucent paper diffuse forward as soft tints of vermilion, ochre, and indigo. Impressions of individual disciples and of the complete cycle are documented in the Munakata Shiko Memorial Hall in Aomori, the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Cleveland Museum of Art among other principal museum collections.
The Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni series contains 1 prints, created by Shiko Munakata.
The Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni series was created by Shiko Munakata (棟方志功).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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