Unknown
Japanese

Horse Head (Haniwa), 6th c. CE, late Kofun period
earthenware (terra cotta)
15 1/8 x 10 3/8 in.

SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by the Women's Board in memory of Cornelia M. Petersen
1967.20



Example of a full Haniwa Horse, Japan, Kofun Period (c. 3rd century-538), Earthenware with traces of pigment, 59.7cm x 66.cm, The Norweb Collection.

RESEARCH PAPER

The Haniwa Horse’s Head in the Asian Collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art was excavated in Ibaraki Prefecture (50 miles NE of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of Japan) in 1967. The Women’s Board, in memory of Cornelia M. Petersen, purchased it in the same year.

This piece of Haniwa sculpture is a part of an original statue of a complete horse that stood on four, round clay cylinder "legs", outside a tumulus (mounded) tomb, from the late Kofun Period in Japan. It is hollow and made from an iron-based clay using the coil method where coils of clay are rolled and placed one atop the next until a specific shape is formed. The clay is fired only once and the warm buff-red color remains. Originally this horse probably stood three to four feet tall, with the four leg cylinders imbedded in the surrounding earth.

The design of this horse and other Haniwa figures is simple and direct. The ears are alert, the eyes are not even, and there is a harness and headpiece indicating that the complete horse carried a saddle. There is some incision design in the form of small holes on the headpiece, but little else indicating decoration.

The Kofun or Tumulus Period (360-660CE) is an early period in Japanese art history. It comes after the first two known artistic periods, the Jomon (4500-300 BCE) and the Yayoi (300BCE-360CE.) During this protohistoric time various chieftains, and later rulers, built huge mounded tombs (hence the term tumulus, which means mounded) in the shape of keyholes. These unusually shaped mounded tombs were unique to Japan. It is thought that the shape conferred the magic properties of "hou" which imprisoned demons.

1. The mounds were surrounded by clay cylinders, called Haniwa, which were approximately three to four inches in diameter and three to four feet in height. The haniwa were sunk into the earth and protruded above ground on the perimeter of the tomb, forming a fence-like structure. The reason for these early cylinders is not certain, but it is thought that they provided protection from erosion of the tomb. In fact some of the tombs were surrounded by a moat filled with water that guarded the tomb itself. In the middle and late Kofun period figures were added to the cylinders. Riderless horse haniwa were some of the first such figures to appear. It is not clear when the horse first entered Japan, but there were drawings on the decorated bronze "dotaku" bells that show clay Haniwa horses with saddle and bridal.

2. These mysterious bells were found in Yayoi tombs. The Yayoi people were peaceful and their art demonstrates refinement and the use of advanced technology. They used simple, understated decoration on their ceramics and bronzes. More than one scholar has stated that the "early Kofun tombs are actually an extension of the Yayoi burial practice."

3. By the 5th Century the Haniwa show an increasingly military equestrian society. One author stated that the artwork takes on an authoritarian, martial quality.

4. Haniwa horses are found in rows, facing outwards above ground. There are many figures, some in military garb, as well as many other human figures that demonstrate different clothing and roles in the society. Armor and shields are very detailed. The overall design of the Haniwa is simple. The figures are unadorned, and the faces display little emotion. In some ways these images have an abstract quality. The essence of the figure is contained with little need to describe it further.

Various writers differ on the purpose of the Haniwa. Some think that they represent a link between the living and the dead. Others think that they were similar to the Chinese "Ming ch’ i" in replacing live servants and animals in the burial of the ruler. Still others think that they served a purely utilitarian purpose in that the earliest Haniwa were simple cylinders placed close together parallel to the outline of the tumulus, which prevented erosion of the soil. Later as figures were added to the tops of the cylinders they may have had a decorative purpose and were a way of announcing how powerful and important the buried leader had been. In any event, there are enough figures found in a multiplicity of sites to know that these simple and beautiful sculptures were an important part of early Japanese art and custom.
"Long regarded as simply tomb guardians, Haniwa are beginning to gain recognition as artistic achievements that rank alongside the earliest Egyptian and pre-Colombian clay images."

5. Several myths have developed around the Haniwa. Japan’s first chronicle, the Nihon Shoki completed in 720 CE, mentions two legends related to the Haniwa horse. One concerns a man named Hyakuson who visits his daughter after the birth of her first child. While riding home in the moonlight and passing at the foot of the Konda Imperial Tumulus he falls in with a horseman mounted on a red courser which "dashed along like the flight of a dragon, with splendid high springing action, darting off like a wild goose." Hyakuson is very impressed with the horse and attempts to keep up with it, but constantly falls behind. He wishes that he might ride such a horse. The rider slows and offers to trade horses. Hyakuson readily agrees, and rides the beautiful horse home. The next morning he finds that the red horse is gone, and instead has turned into a Haniwa horse. He returns to the Konda Imperial Tumulus and finds his own horse standing among the clay horses. He takes his horse and leaves the other clay horse in its place.

6. In another story it is told that a certain emperor always rode a white horse and that when he was buried he left instructions that other white horses were to surround his tomb so that he might ride in the later time. Numerous white horses were kept on the perimeter of his tomb, carefully fed, watered and cared for by his servants. When the servants became too old to continue the practice, clay horses were created and placed around the tomb in place of the living horses.

7. These stories and others were written several hundred years after the great Kofun tombs were built to explain their beginnings. Like so many myths and legends, they tell the story of a people. Our Haniwa Horse’s Head is a wonderful part of art history.

Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Terri L. Pagels, February/March 2003

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

This horse head, with its simple, geometric forms, is a remnant of a hollow, full-figured sculpture known as a haniwa, literally “clay cylinder.” Haniwa horses, warriors, birds, and other animals were placed around the periphery of huge burial mounds constructed for powerful clan leaders, signifying the sanctity of the area. The name of this period, Kofun, literally “old tombs,” refers to these large burial mounds.

- Ridley-Tree Gallery, 2016