Title: Kusozu Emakimono (The Nine Phases Picture Scroll, Circa 1800-1850. A Handscroll of Ten Paintings on The Nine Stages of Decay, Depicting the Process from when a Beautiful Woman Dies to when she Decays and Ends up in her Grave, Gruesomely Depicted
Condition: Very Good
A Late Edo Period, early to mid 19th century series of ten paintings bound as an emakimono handscroll, depicting the Nine Stages of Decay, with the series of images known as Kusozu in Japan.
A Buddhist meditational practice, one must imagine and observe the gradual decomposition of a dead body. The setting for the nine stages is outdoors, where a corpse would be left exposed to decay in a field, graveyard, or charnel ground.
The history of the meditation on this process of bodily decay in fact originates with Early Buddhism, in India, before coming to Japan. Early lists can be found in the "Sutra on the Samādhi Contemplation of the Oceanlike Buddha," and the "Discourse on the Great Wisdom".
Buddhist monks in Japan would use this contemplation on a decaying corpse as a monastic practice to reduce their sexual desires or reduce one’s attachment to their own body.
The nine stages are as such:
Distention, Rupturing, Exudation of Blood, Putrefaction, Discoloration and Desiccation, Consumption by Wildlife, Dismemberment, Reduced to Bones, Reduced to Ashes
As the stages would imply, the depictions are morbid and gruesome but serve as an important meditational practice in regard to death.
The series of paintings do vary from artist to artist, but follow as such here:
1. A beautiful maiden, prior to death, and in her many-colored kimono
2. The maiden’s corpse, placed between two mats, with an agonized expression upon her face
3. The corpse of the maiden lies face down, slowly beginning to bloat
4. The corpse of the maiden continues to bloat and rupture as well, with a rictus grin developed on the face
5. The corpse has putrefied and rotted, depicted in nauseating detail, rot and flies emanating from the body, the hair having fallen off, and the body emaciated asides from the distended stomach
6. The corpse is torn apart and consumed by crows ripping out organs and gathering to take what they can
7. The corpse is pick of all fresh meat, with only a desiccated remnant left, hair still streaming from the full
8. Time passes, and the skeleton is largely cleaned, jaw hung open
9. Only a handful of bones remain now, amongst two wild-eyed dogs
10. A burial mound with tomb atop is built where the body once lay, the ground now fresh and full of grass.
There are two artist seals which I do not recognize.
The paintings have been laid down and bound in a scroll for preservation, with a beautiful brocade decorated cover, and there are jikusaki (knobs).
One brocade bound emakimono (picture scroll) on paper, roughly 24.2 x 280 cm. The knobs are not included as a part of the measurement
This emakimono is in very good shape, with minimal rubbing and wear to the decorated cover.