Horse Race at the Kamo Shrineearly to mid-1600s · Study 1976.95

Context from the museum

Here nearly 600 figures, engaged in a bewildering array of activities, have gathered at the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto for the horse race held annually on May 5 since at least the 800s. The entire populace seems to have turned out, apparent in the diversions and revelries spread out across these resplendent byøbu. The race begins on the right screen and continues far into the left along the lower half of the composition. Here the painter's genius for depicting engaging crowd scenes, a characteristic of Heian pictorial compositions, emerges in full force. The range of textile patterns alone is astonishing. The upper regions of the composition feature the shrine, its setting in northern Kyoto west of Lake Takaragaike, its architecture, and the visitors whose intentions range from casually mundane to spiritual. These paintings were originally part of a much larger pictorial narrative of linked murals in fusuma-e format. Four segments are known today from what must have been an extraordinary room of contiguous surfaces, executed by studio-trained but anonymous masters of yamato-e genre painting in Kyoto. The scale of the paintings and the quality of the materials indicate that they were commissioned by a sophisticated, wealthy patron.

Museum description reproduced from its CC0 open-access record. Read the original catalog entry.

A detail to notice

The winner is decided by the distance between horses, not by which horse finished first.

Observation supplied by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Read the dimensions before the image

The selected image measurement for Horse Race at the Kamo Shrine is 362 cm wide and 161 cm high, equivalent to approximately 142.5 × 63.4 inches. Dividing width by height gives a format ratio of 2.25:1. The rectangular bounding area is 5.83 square meters; it describes the measured footprint, not the amount of paint or the monetary value.

On an illustrative 300 cm wall, the recorded width occupies 120.7% of the span before adding a frame. That exceeds the example wall width, so a smaller reference wall would not reproduce the recorded scale. These are calculations by Physical Art For Crypto using museum measurements. They are not the museum’s display recommendations.

Questions to bring to your own collection

With Horse Race at the Kamo Shrine in view, identify one feature you can point to, then distinguish what the museum records from your personal response. Keep its medium, Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on gilded paper, in your notes when comparing contemporary works.

• Which part of this horizontal composition catches your eye first?
• Would a 362 cm width still suit the space after allowing for furniture and a frame?
• What surface detail would you need to see in person or in a close photograph?