Untitled

Fujiwara no Nobuzane

13th century · Section of a handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink on paper · Asian Art

This hanging scroll illustrates part of an imaginary poetry competition among fifty poets from the past. The selection of poems from old anthologies and their arrangement into "competing" pairs is traditionally attributed to Emperor Gotoba (1180–1236), perhaps Japanese poetry's greatest patron. The Metropolitan's painting shows the sixty-first round, which pits Minamoto no Hitoshi (880–951) against the Lady Ichinomiya Kii (d. ca. 1113). The first of three poetry exchanges is recorded in a soft broad hand above a portrait of the male poet: Why is it that love persists when deeply hidden, as a field overgrown in bamboo grass at midday? Ichinomiya Kii replies: The fields of bush clover at Mano are tangled and tossed in the autumn wind; for the dew that clings to its blossoms there is no repose. The rest of this fictional exchange and the portrait of Ichinomiya Kii are on a separate hanging scroll now in a private collection in Japan. Several other segments from this version of the Jidaifudo utaawase exist, including one in the Tokyo National Museum. Simple ink portraits of famous poets paired with their most well known works were extremely popular in the Kamakura period. The portraits follow the conventions of their time: a person seated in a stylized three-quarter or profile view, with flattened robes emphasizing social ranking, and all individual expression reserved for the face. The playful figures in these scrolls are fanciful re-creations of cultural heroes and heroines, a unique group immortalized within the intimate lines of their poetry.

Artist

Fujiwara no Nobuzane

Date

13th century

Medium

Section of a handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink 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