Cactus Gallery LA
SAN ZARU. THE THREE WISE MONKEYS by artist Carolina Seth
$ 500.00
Oil on fine art paper, 8” x 10”.
In a vintage frame to 12” x 13.5”
San Zaru, or three wise monkeys, are a Japanese pictorial maxim, embodying the proverbial principle "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
The three monkeys are:
Mizaru, who sees no evil, covering his eyes
Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering his ears, and
Iwazaru, who speaks no evil, covering his mouth.
The source that popularized this pictorial maxim is a 17th-century carving over a door of the Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, Japan. The carvings were carved by Hidari Jingoro, and believed to have incorporated Confucius’s Code of Conduct, using the monkey as a way to depict man’s life cycle.
