Street at Evening in the Rain | Cleveland Museum of Art

This suite of color lithographs collected Pierre Bonnard’s observations of city life, ranging from animated street scenes to distant observations glimpsed from the artist’s Montmartre studio window. Rather than memorializing the famous monuments of Paris, Bonnard preferred to depict small neighborhood scenes populated by urbanites shopping and strolling and by vendors selling their wares. The setting for one of the prints is the second-largest public park in Paris, the Bois de Boulogne, which was a popular place for families to relax, stroll, and enjoy carriage rides around the lakes. Two prints are nocturnal scenes in which gaslight emanating from shop windows is reflected on the wet streets, creating passages of bright yellow in the otherwise dark compositions. Bonnard’s favorite subjects, such as the Parisienne—a young, fashionable, modern woman—as well as children and dogs, appear repeatedly throughout the prints in the suite.

Seated Figure Wearing a Skin | Cleveland Museum of Art

This type of image-showing a human clothed in a sacrificial victim’s skin, visible around the mouth and wrists-is one of the most awesome created by Mesoamerican artists. The figure represents the deity Xipe Totec or a human impersonator. Among the later Aztecs, Xipe was associated with fertility, rain, and renewal. Perhaps the wearer, upon shedding the skin, was conceived as a sprout emerging from a withered husk. Xipe also had military connections.

Tiger in Wind | Cleveland Museum of Art

The seals appended to the inscription on this painting suggest that the text was brushed by Yūjō (1723–1773), an imperial prince who became a Buddhist monk and was abbot of Enman'in at Miidera. The line is from a poem attributed to a Yuan dynasty poet, Yu Ruyu (dates unknown), and describes the sound of a fierce wind lashing the ground. Wind is associated with the roar of the tiger. Yūjō was Maruyama Ōkyo's most important patron as a young artist, and this painting has a signature asserting that Ōkyo created it in 1772, the year before Yūjō's death. While Yūjō produced a preface for a now famous set of handscrolls he commissioned Ōkyo to paint, and a number of Ōkyo's compositions for Enman'in survive, this work would appear to be one imagining their relationship, as opposed to a genuine piece.

Woman and Water Buffalo Rhyton | Cleveland Museum of Art

Recalling both Greek and Iranian traditions of head vases and <em>rhyta </em>(drinking horns), this unusual silver vessel combines the heads of a woman and a water buffalo. A filling hole on top and a pouring or drinking spout in front make clear its function. An inscription in Middle Persian on its back records its weight: probably 50 <em>staters</em> and three <em>drachmae</em> (close to its current weight of just over 700 grams, or about 1-1/2 pounds). The woman’s flat brow, straight nose, and widely set, heavy-lidded eyes—along with the sectarian mark in gold on her forehead—relate to art of the Indus River Valley and Hindu Kush regions of today’s Pakistan and Afghanistan. While we do not know for sure, numerous scholars have suggested that she may depict the Indian warrior goddess Durga, slayer of the buffalo demon.

Seated Figure Wearing a Skin | Cleveland Museum of Art

This type of image-showing a human clothed in a sacrificial victim’s skin, visible around the mouth and wrists-is one of the most awesome created by Mesoamerican artists. The figure represents the deity Xipe Totec or a human impersonator. Among the later Aztecs, Xipe was associated with fertility, rain, and renewal. Perhaps the wearer, upon shedding the skin, was conceived as a sprout emerging from a withered husk. Xipe also had military connections.

Rain Clearing over a Summer’s Mountain | Cleveland Museum of Art

Before entering into his apprenticeship with Yohei II, Yohei III trained as a painter in Osaka. He continued to paint throughout his career as a ceramist. Yohei IV authenticated this painting as having been done by his father in a box lid inscription dated to the summer of 1919. The signed inscription by Yohei III in the painting’s upper right gives the title <em>Rain Clearing Over a Summer’s Mountai</em>n and is accompanied by his Imperial Household Artist seal. His signature seal is found in the lower left on the grassy riverbank. The composition follows a basic literati painting convention: it is divided into a foreground, middle ground, and background, with trees in the front, a temple in the middle, and mountains at the back. The brushwork, too, with its ovals of inkwash and dry-brushed dots and lines, has the casual feel of a painting made for one’s own amusement or dashed off for a friend. <br><br>As part of his ceramic practice, Yohei III also made roller ends to be placed at either end of the wooden dowel around which the lower part of a hanging scroll mounting is wrapped. These served both as weights for the painting and as knobs for handling it when rolling and unrolling. The pair here, <a href="http://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.152"><u>CMA 2022.152</u></a>, is made of porcelain with a green glaze.

Box Japan, Edo period (1615-1868) | Cleveland Museum of Art

For the cover designs on writing boxes, Chinese motifs like Mt. Penglai (Horai-zan in Japanese), the island of immortality, remained popular. A landscape with a river, buildings, mountains, trees, and clouds decorates the top of this portable writing box while the inside is embellished with clouds, birds, water, and grasses and offers a space for a tiny ink stone.

Berglandschap met regenwolken en doorbrekende zon, Alexandre Calame, 1852 - 1855 - Rijksmuseum