Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi)
Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi
About This Series
Variants under the title Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni, again rendering Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi, gather impressions from the cycle that Shiko Munakata revised across more than two decades, the work for which he received the Print Prize at the 1955 Sao Paulo Biennale and the Grand Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale and that secured his place as Japan's preeminent postwar Buddhist printmaker. The cycle comprises twelve standing figures, the bodhisattvas Monju and Fugen flanking the ten chief disciples of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, each represented frontally as a tall columnar image carved directly into yamazakura cherry block in the ita-e manner Munakata had developed in the 1930s following his discovery of woodblock as the natural medium for an Aomori boy whose first ambition had been oil painting. The original blocks were begun in 1939, and the cycle was substantially recarved after wartime destruction, the artist refining the image of each disciple through successive states. Each figure is set against a densely carved ground filled with the artist's calligraphic line and the disciple's identifying attributes, the disciple's name inscribed in Munakata's idiosyncratic seal-script characters, and many impressions are completed by uragashin verso-coloring in which mineral pigments applied to the back of the translucent washi migrate forward to register as soft tints of vermilion, ochre, and indigo. Impressions of individual figures and complete sets are documented in the Munakata Shiko Memorial Hall, the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other principal museum holdings of twentieth-century Japanese print.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Variants under the title Two Bodhisattvas and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni, again rendering Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi, gather impressions from the cycle that Shiko Munakata revised across more than two decades, the work for which he received the Print Prize at the 1955 Sao Paulo Biennale and the Grand Prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale and that secured his place as Japan's preeminent postwar Buddhist printmaker. The cycle comprises twelve standing figures, the bodhisattvas Monju and Fugen flanking the ten chief disciples of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, each represented frontally as a tall columnar image carved directly into yamazakura cherry block in the ita-e manner Munakata had developed in the 1930s following his discovery of woodblock as the natural medium for an Aomori boy whose first ambition had been oil painting. The original blocks were begun in 1939, and the cycle was substantially recarved after wartime destruction, the artist refining the image of each disciple through successive states. Each figure is set against a densely carved ground filled with the artist's calligraphic line and the disciple's identifying attributes, the disciple's name inscribed in Munakata's idiosyncratic seal-script characters, and many impressions are completed by uragashin verso-coloring in which mineral pigments applied to the back of the translucent washi migrate forward to register as soft tints of vermilion, ochre, and indigo. Impressions of individual figures and complete sets are documented in the Munakata Shiko Memorial Hall, the National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other principal museum holdings of twentieth-century Japanese print.
The Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) series contains 1 prints, created by Shiko Munakata.
The Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) series was created by Shiko Munakata (棟方志功).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi) series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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