窪俊満筆　大田南畝賛　石川雅望賛　浅草庵市人賛　四方真顔賛　時鳥図|Hototogisu

Yomo Magao|Rokujuen 六樹園|Kubo Shunman|Asakusaan Ichindo|Ōta Nanpo

early 19th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

A hototogisu, a Japanese variety of cuckoo, descends in flight against the backdrop of a full moon emerging from a bank of clouds. The painting encapsulates the atmosphere of an evening whose silence broken by the song of the hototogisu, a visual and literary metaphor celebrated in Japan since ancient times—often referring to the sad departure of a male lover after a nocturnal tryst. Filling the blank spaces on the silk is an assortment of poetic inscriptions by associates of the artist, men of letters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Numerous collaborative works of this type exist from the era, often executed in this particular format, with kyōka (popular, often witty or playful verses) poems accompanying a small image. Horizontal bands of ink and light color contribute to the evocative quality of the painting. Kubo Shunman, a kyōka master as well as a painter and a designer of woodblock prints, lived and worked in Edo (Tokyo), where he studied ukiyo-e painting, composed poetry under various names, produced woodblock prints for book illustrations, and gained renown for his witty, sometimes satirical verse. This hanging scroll is evidence of his activity in the lively kyōka poetry circles of Edo sophisticates and literary men of his day.

Artist

Yomo Magao|Rokujuen 六樹園|Kubo Shunman|Asakusaan Ichindo|Ōta Nanpo

Date

early 19th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2019