Horse Race at the Kamo Shrine
1604
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Horse Race at the Kamo Shrine is a 1604 unspecified by Unknown, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a long, folded screen packed with tiny people at a festival in old Kyoto. Horses gallop along the bottom; above them, crowds eat, gossip, and watch acrobats. This painting shows a real race that’s been run every May since the 800s. The artist crammed in nearly 600 figures—each one different—without making it feel messy. Look up *japan, edo period (1615–1868)* to see more scenes like this.
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…
The winner is decided by the distance between horses, not by which horse finished first.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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