本阿見光悦書・俵屋宗達下絵 桜下絵和歌色紙 鴨長明|Poem by Kamo no Chōmei with Underpainting of Cherry Blossoms
Tawaraya Sōtatsu|Hon'ami Kōetsu
dated 1606 · Poem card (shikishi) mounted as a hanging scroll; ink, gold, and silver on paper · Asian Art
Nagamureba ni mono omou aki ni mata waga mi hitotsu no mine no matsu kaze Gazing into the distance, in a melancholy autumn mood, is it for me alone that winds howl through boughs of pines on that solitary peak? —Trans. John T. Carpenter This poem page is one of the earliest verifiable works by the influential calligrapher Hon’ami Kōetsu. The poem, included in the anthology New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems (Shin kokin wakashū), is by the monk-poet Kamo no Chōmei (1153–1216), who was famous for his poems on cherry blossoms. Kōetsu and Tawaraya Sōtatsu produced many similar works on both individual sheets and handscrolls. Rarely do background motifs have any semantic or symbolic connection to the poems they accompany. Here, however, Kōetsu responded with élan to the decorated handscrolls and shikishi that Sōtatsu’s studio presented him to write upon.
- Artist
- Tawaraya Sōtatsu|Hon'ami Kōetsu
- Date
- dated 1606
- Medium
- Poem card (shikishi) mounted as a hanging scroll; ink, gold, and silver on paper
- Culture
- Japan
- Department
- Asian Art
- Credit line
- The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975
