Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi)
Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi
About This Series
Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi, the Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni, is the cycle on which Shiko Munakata's international reputation rests, the work that earned him the Print Prize at the 1955 Sao Paulo Biennale and the Grand Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale and that established him as the postwar Japanese printmaker most fully identified with Buddhist subject matter. The cycle comprises twelve near life-size standing figures, the bodhisattvas Monju (Manjushri) and Fugen (Samantabhadra) flanking the ten chief disciples of the historical Buddha, each represented frontally as a single columnar image carved directly into cherry block and printed in sumi on washi. The earliest sheets were begun in 1939 in the figural manner Munakata had developed in the 1930s after his discovery of woodblock as the natural medium for an Aomori boy whose initial ambition had been oil painting, and the cycle was revised across the 1940s and 1950s as the artist refined the image of each disciple, the wartime destruction of original blocks requiring substantial recarving. Each figure is set against a densely carved ground filled with the artist's calligraphic line and the disciple's identifying attributes, the names inscribed in seal-script characters, and many impressions are completed by uragashin verso-coloring that registers soft tints of red, ochre, and indigo behind the saturated ink. The cycle is documented in the holdings of 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 other principal museum collections of twentieth-century Japanese print.
Prints in This Series (6)
Frequently Asked Questions
Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi, the Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni, is the cycle on which Shiko Munakata's international reputation rests, the work that earned him the Print Prize at the 1955 Sao Paulo Biennale and the Grand Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale and that established him as the postwar Japanese printmaker most fully identified with Buddhist subject matter. The cycle comprises twelve near life-size standing figures, the bodhisattvas Monju (Manjushri) and Fugen (Samantabhadra) flanking the ten chief disciples of the historical Buddha, each represented frontally as a single columnar image carved directly into cherry block and printed in sumi on washi. The earliest sheets were begun in 1939 in the figural manner Munakata had developed in the 1930s after his discovery of woodblock as the natural medium for an Aomori boy whose initial ambition had been oil painting, and the cycle was revised across the 1940s and 1950s as the artist refined the image of each disciple, the wartime destruction of original blocks requiring substantial recarving. Each figure is set against a densely carved ground filled with the artist's calligraphic line and the disciple's identifying attributes, the names inscribed in seal-script characters, and many impressions are completed by uragashin verso-coloring that registers soft tints of red, ochre, and indigo behind the saturated ink. The cycle is documented in the holdings of 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 other principal museum collections of twentieth-century Japanese print.
The Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) series contains 8 prints, created by Shiko Munakata.
The Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) series was created by Shiko Munakata (棟方志功).
We currently have 6 of 8 known prints from the Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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