Nemuri-neko
Nemuri-neko or Nemuri-no-neko ( Japanese 眠 り 猫 ; to English "sleeping cat" or "slumbering cat") is a famous Japanese sculpture in the shape of a sleeping cat . It is the work of the artist Hidari Jingorō (1594-1634) and is located on the eastern corridor to the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu in a side shrine ( Okusha Hōtō ) of the Nikkō Tōshō-gū in Nikkō . It is considered a national treasure in Japan .
description
The Nemuri-neko is depicted as a gray and white spotted cat in a resting-lying pose and with peacefully closed eyes, the animal is surrounded by peony flowers . Your motif can be found in a colored painted wooden panel above the entrance to the mausoleum . The figurine is said to have the power to keep rats and mice away. Their peaceful slumber should also give viewers inner peace. A chirping sparrow is depicted on the back . It is positioned so that in the absence of the decorative frame it would sit exactly on the cat's back. This composition was chosen on purpose to fulfill a certain symbolic statement: As long as the cat is sleeping peacefully, the sparrow can approach it without being eaten. Therefore, all of the carving is widely viewed as a symbol of a peaceful world.
literature
- T. Volker: The Animal in Far Eastern Art: And Especially in the Art of the Japanese Netsuke, with References to Chinese Origins, Traditions, Legends, and Art (= Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden , 6th – 7th ed .). BRILL, Leiden 1950, ISBN 9004042954 , p. 28
- Louis Frédéric: Japan Encyclopedia . Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 2002, ISBN 0674017536 , p. 307.
