CLOUD KANNON 1977

$240.00

SOLD

【 The Concept 】

Carved from a single billet of ebony, this is a standing figure of Kannon — the bodhisattva of compassion — rising from a swirling mass of cloud and wave. A beast half-emerges from the turbulence at her feet, its form left deliberately indistinct, so that the eye is drawn upward, out of the churning base and toward the still, downturned calm of the bodhisattva's face. That upward pull is the whole subject of the piece, stated in a single vertical gesture: composure standing over unrest, stillness lifting clear of motion.

What gives the carving its character is that the figure was never fully released from the block it came from. The robe folds, the prayer beads, and the roiling pedestal all lift out in high relief from the raw, unworked outer face of the timber — the finished image and the rough wood are one continuous piece, so that the object reads at once as a sculpture and as the tree it was cut from. Dense, dark, and self-contained, it carries the vertical authority of a temple pillar at the scale of the hand, and rewards being turned slowly and read from every side rather than taken in at a glance.

【 The Function 】

A devotional figure (念持仏 / nenjibutsu) — a private altar piece meant to be kept close, held in the hand, or set in a personal shrine rather than a temple hall. At nineteen centimetres it is scaled for a shelf, a windowsill, or a study desk, where its dark mass reads as a quiet vertical accent.

【 The Texture 】

Ebony takes an almost stone-like finish. Here the front is worked to a smooth, close grain that catches light along the folds of the robe and the swirl of the pedestal, while the reverse is left as the natural face of the wood — fibrous, ridged, and matte. The contrast between the finished front and the raw back is the piece's signature.

【 Presence 】

Dense, dark, and deliberate. The near-black tone and the top-heavy, upward-reaching form give the figure a gravity out of all proportion to its size — it holds a corner of a room the way a much larger object would.

Provenance Note: Sourced from a private collection in Japan.

【 The Concept 】

Carved from a single billet of ebony, this is a standing figure of Kannon — the bodhisattva of compassion — rising from a swirling mass of cloud and wave. A beast half-emerges from the turbulence at her feet, its form left deliberately indistinct, so that the eye is drawn upward, out of the churning base and toward the still, downturned calm of the bodhisattva's face. That upward pull is the whole subject of the piece, stated in a single vertical gesture: composure standing over unrest, stillness lifting clear of motion.

What gives the carving its character is that the figure was never fully released from the block it came from. The robe folds, the prayer beads, and the roiling pedestal all lift out in high relief from the raw, unworked outer face of the timber — the finished image and the rough wood are one continuous piece, so that the object reads at once as a sculpture and as the tree it was cut from. Dense, dark, and self-contained, it carries the vertical authority of a temple pillar at the scale of the hand, and rewards being turned slowly and read from every side rather than taken in at a glance.

【 The Function 】

A devotional figure (念持仏 / nenjibutsu) — a private altar piece meant to be kept close, held in the hand, or set in a personal shrine rather than a temple hall. At nineteen centimetres it is scaled for a shelf, a windowsill, or a study desk, where its dark mass reads as a quiet vertical accent.

【 The Texture 】

Ebony takes an almost stone-like finish. Here the front is worked to a smooth, close grain that catches light along the folds of the robe and the swirl of the pedestal, while the reverse is left as the natural face of the wood — fibrous, ridged, and matte. The contrast between the finished front and the raw back is the piece's signature.

【 Presence 】

Dense, dark, and deliberate. The near-black tone and the top-heavy, upward-reaching form give the figure a gravity out of all proportion to its size — it holds a corner of a room the way a much larger object would.

Provenance Note: Sourced from a private collection in Japan.

【Context】

Identity: A carved figure of Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), the bodhisattva of compassion. In Japan, Kannon is venerated in many aspects — popularly grouped as the Sanjūsan Kannon (三十三観音), the thirty-three manifestations the bodhisattva assumes to reach beings in every circumstance. Here the figure stands upon a swirling pedestal of cloud and wave, the elements through which Kannon is imagined descending into the world; a beast emerges from the turbulence at the base, its form stylized and not identified here.

```
Origin: Japanese.
```

Technique: Relief carving from a single block (一木造 / ichiboku-zukuri) — one of the oldest methods of Japanese Buddhist sculpture, dominant in the Heian period before the joined-block technique (寄木造 / yosegi-zukuri) was refined. A single block was prized because it kept the image whole and, by tradition, preserved the spirit of the tree it was cut from; later itinerant carver-monks such as Enkū and Mokujiki deliberately left tool marks and raw wood exposed as an offering to the material. This piece belongs to that sensibility: the natural outer face of the timber is retained as an integral backdrop rather than cut away.

Material: Ebony (黒檀 / kokutan) — a dense tropical hardwood counted among the karaki (唐木), the prized imported woods long used in Japan for the finest cabinetry, Buddhist ritual implements, and prayer beads. Valued for its near-black color, its weight, and a grain fine enough to take a stone-like polish, it was also associated with warding and permanence.

Motif: Cloud and wave signify the bodhisattva appearing amid the elements — a figure of protection and safe passage. The prayer beads (念珠 / nenju) at the hand mark the figure's devotional character.

Construction: One continuous piece of wood — figure, beast, cloud-and-wave, and integral backdrop — set on a squared wooden plinth.

【 Dimensions (Approx.) 】

```
Height: 19 cm (7.5 in)
```
```
Width: 4.5 cm (1.8 in)
```
```
Weight: 0.177 kg (0.39 lb)
```