Album of Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing

Album of Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing

Konoe Nobutada

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Konoe Nobutada, a courtier-calligrapher famed for his bold, expressive, and idiosyncratic handwriting, inscribed the decorated poetry sheets (shikishi) for an album comprising selections from Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing, compiled about 1013 by the courtier-poet Fujiwara no Kintō (966–1041). This was surely one of the most widely studied and cited poetry anthologies available around the time Murasaki Shikibu was crafting her complex tale, which is interwoven with 795 waka (thirty-one-syllable verses) and countless allusions to Chinese poems. Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing is composed of 588 Chinese couplets and 216 accompanying waka, interspersed with each other as if to draw out resonances in poetic imagery and style.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Album of Japanese and Chinese Poems to SingAlbum of Japanese and Chinese Poems to SingAlbum of Japanese and Chinese Poems to SingAlbum of Japanese and Chinese Poems to SingAlbum of Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing

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.