“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)

“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)

Tawaraya Sōtatsu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This poem card comes from a set of more than twenty surviving sheets, each of which is illustrated with a scene from the tenth-century Tales of Ise and accompanied by a poem from the relevant chapter inscribed by a calligrapher of the day. In this episode, a courtier traveling on Mount Utsu (literally, “mountain of sadness”) meets an itinerant monk on his way to Kyoto and asks him to give his regards to a lover in the distant capital. Suruga naru Utsu no yamabe no utsutsu ni mo yume ni mo hito ni awanu narikeri Amid the “sad hills” of Mount Utsu in Suruga Province, I cannot meet my lover, not even in my dreams. —Trans. John T. Carpenter

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)“Mount Utsu” (Utsu no yama), from The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari)

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.