鈴木春信画　虚無僧・「風俗四季歌仙　卯月」|A Flute-Playing Monk (Komusō); The Fourth Month (Uzuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals of the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)

Suzuki Harunobu

ca. 1768 · Woodblock print; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

鈴木春信画　虚無僧・「風俗四季歌仙　卯月」|A Flute-Playing Monk (Komusō); The Fourth Month (Uzuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals of the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen) — Suzuki Harunobu

Komusō were itinerant Zen Buddhist monks of the Fuke sect who traveled the countryside, covering their heads with oversize basketlike hats and playing bamboo flutes (shakuhachi). Here the young monk has caught the attention of young women, who ogle him from indoors. He turns to watch the flight of a cuckoo bird (hototogisu), a symbol of “the fourth month,” the beginning of summer, and fleeting love. The anonymous poem is from the summer section of Seven Hundred Poems Compiled by Lord Shirakawa (Shirakawa-dono shichi-hyakushu, no. 136), compiled around 1265: Hito mo toe saku ya uzuki no hana-zakari kōchō ni nitaru yado no kakine o Let everyone know that now in the fourth month, the deutzia flowers in bloom resemble butterflies covering a hedge in the garden. —Trans. John T. Carpenter

Artist: Suzuki Harunobu
Date: ca. 1768
Medium: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Culture: Japan
Department: Asian Art
Credit line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

鈴木春信画 虚無僧・「風俗四季歌仙 卯月」|A Flute-Playing Monk (Komusō); The Fourth Month (Uzuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals of the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)

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鈴木春信画　虚無僧・「風俗四季歌仙　卯月」|A Flute-Playing Monk (Komusō); The Fourth Month (Uzuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals of the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)