Artworks

Door paintings of the Phoenix Hall

Artwork · Anonymous · c. 1053 · painting · Byōdō-in Temple

The paintings on the inner surfaces of the doors depict the welcome given to the nine categories of beings reborn in the Western Paradise, each with a long inscription from the Amitāyus Sutra (Kanmuryōju kyō). Removed from the hall to preserve what remains. On the door for the Middle Class, Upper Rank, Amida descends on a white cloud towards the veranda of a nobleman’s house; below, horses gambol in the shallow water of a pond among the gentle hills of Heian — among the earliest datable yamato-e landscapes. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 145–146, figs. 176–177. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.