伝西行法師筆 『後撰和歌集』　断簡　「白河切」|Three Poems from the Later Collection of Japanese Poems (Gosen wakashū)

Monk Saigyō

late 12th century · Page from a booklet, mounted as hanging scroll; ink on paper · Asian Art

Although this rare, early surviving manuscript section of a Heian-period poetry anthology was certainly not written by the esteemed monk-poet Saigyō, based on comparison with accepted examples of his handwriting, in the course of its transmission through the centuries it became associated with him. We can assume that connoisseurs made the connection because the calligraphic style, with its bolder, brusquer forms of kana, a system of syllabic writing, was, in fact, most probably brushed about the time Saigyō was active as a poet of waka, thirty-one-syllable court poems of the type recorded here.

Artist

Monk Saigyō

Date

late 12th century

Medium

Page from a booklet, mounted as hanging scroll; ink on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015