Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)

Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)

Nijō Tameyo

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fluid but crisp and unerringly precise kana style of this writing, with its abrupt turns of the brush and contrasting widths, bespeaks a stylistic shift in early medieval calligraphy. It was so prized as a calligraphic model that pages or even parts of pages were extracted from surviving volumes and lovingly remounted as hanging scrolls or calligraphy albums. Among the three waka poems included is the famous verse by Ki no Tsurayuki that was also in the immensely popular anthology One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu): Hito wa isa kokoro mo shirazu furusato wa hana zo mukashi no ka ni nioikeru As for people, I can’t plumb the depths of their hearts, but when back in my hometown, the plum blossoms bring back a fragrance of the fond past. —trans. by John T. Carpenter

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)Poems from the “Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern,” known as the “Murasame Fragments" (Murasame-gire)

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.