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Lot Essay
published:
Dai Hokusai ten: Edo ga unda sekai no eshi (Great Hokusai exhibition: A world artist born of Edo), edited by Asahi Shimbun, Tobu Museum of Art, Otsu City Museum of History, Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagata Seiji, editor-in-chief, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1993), pl. 16.
Hokusaikan, ed., Nikuhitsuga Katsushika Hokusai: Zokaichiku kinen (Paintings by Katsushika Hokusai: Commemorating the expansion of the museum), exh. cat. (Obuse: Hokusaikan, 1991), color pl. p. 5.
Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Azabu bijutsu kogeikan (Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts), vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), no. 38.
Ono no Komachi (act. c. 850), a lady-in-waiting of the Heian court, acquired lasting fame for her love poems. Through the centuries, legends surrounding Komachi inspired a cycle of noh plays presenting her as a woman of enticing beauty in youth but of melancholy mood and aloof presence in old age. The long inscription on the right, without specifically mentioning the poet's name, alludes to these qualities of beauty and inaccessibility. The first haiku, signed Beisan, speaks of the cherry trees on the distant hills which, while providing a lovely view, cannot be picked. Similarly, Komachi's fabled beauty can only be known through distant memory, unattainable in the present:
oru koto mo/takane no hana ya/mita bakari
The blossoms on the hills/cannot be plucked/so I only look.
A second haiku is by Teisho, a poet in the Shofu lineage of haiku poets (founded by Matsuo Basho), who signs with a handwritten cipher. Commenting that beauty transcends the seasons, he suggests that even a recluse-poet, like himself, can enjoy the company of white chrysanthemums, a flower with rich literary or amorous connotations, depending on one's predilections:
kiku ga ka ya/inja mo shiroki/tsuma wa are
Even the reclusive poet/has a white-colored companion--/
the scent of chrysanthemums!
Dai Hokusai ten: Edo ga unda sekai no eshi (Great Hokusai exhibition: A world artist born of Edo), edited by Asahi Shimbun, Tobu Museum of Art, Otsu City Museum of History, Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagata Seiji, editor-in-chief, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1993), pl. 16.
Hokusaikan, ed., Nikuhitsuga Katsushika Hokusai: Zokaichiku kinen (Paintings by Katsushika Hokusai: Commemorating the expansion of the museum), exh. cat. (Obuse: Hokusaikan, 1991), color pl. p. 5.
Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Azabu bijutsu kogeikan (Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts), vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), no. 38.
Ono no Komachi (act. c. 850), a lady-in-waiting of the Heian court, acquired lasting fame for her love poems. Through the centuries, legends surrounding Komachi inspired a cycle of noh plays presenting her as a woman of enticing beauty in youth but of melancholy mood and aloof presence in old age. The long inscription on the right, without specifically mentioning the poet's name, alludes to these qualities of beauty and inaccessibility. The first haiku, signed Beisan, speaks of the cherry trees on the distant hills which, while providing a lovely view, cannot be picked. Similarly, Komachi's fabled beauty can only be known through distant memory, unattainable in the present:
oru koto mo/takane no hana ya/mita bakari
The blossoms on the hills/cannot be plucked/so I only look.
A second haiku is by Teisho, a poet in the Shofu lineage of haiku poets (founded by Matsuo Basho), who signs with a handwritten cipher. Commenting that beauty transcends the seasons, he suggests that even a recluse-poet, like himself, can enjoy the company of white chrysanthemums, a flower with rich literary or amorous connotations, depending on one's predilections:
kiku ga ka ya/inja mo shiroki/tsuma wa are
Even the reclusive poet/has a white-colored companion--/
the scent of chrysanthemums!