Section of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of Pines

Section of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of Pines

Hon'ami Kōetsu 本阿弥光悦

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This detached section of a long poetry handscroll was remounted to serve as a self-sufficient calligraphic composition, with a single complete waka (31-syllable court verse) inscribed atop an abstract landscape of pine trees painted in gold. The calligraphy is in the distinctive style of Hon’ami Kōetsu, rendered in a dynamic yet ever so elegant array of “scattered writing” (chirashigaki) rhythmically composed in nine columns—some long, some comprising but a single character—that playfully regroups the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure of the poem into a new composition. The overall balance of this constellation of kanji and kana characters works well, with a focal point of the composition in the cluster of boldly inked characters “aki no tsuyu” 秋の露. These three characters reveal two other trademark features of Kōetsu’s hand. First, he has reversed the two parts of the character aki 秋、so that 火 is on the left, rather than 禾. Second, he has rendered the particle no in a highly cursive form of the phonetically equivalent character nō 濃, in order to make it as prominent as the kanji characters that precede and follow it. The anonymous poem is from Book 11, “Love,” of the Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Kokin wakashū, no. 545), and evokes the imagery of a woman crying into the sleeve of her robe, distraught over lost or unrequited love. It reads: ゆうされは　いとゝひかたき　わか袖に　 秋の露さへ　おきそはりつゝ Yū sareba itodo higataki wa ga sode ni aki no tsuyu sae okisawari-tsutsu As evening descends, it becomes ever harder to dry my tear-soaked sleeve, as the autumn dew also dampens it drop by drop. (Trans. John T. Carpenter)

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Section of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of PinesSection of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of PinesSection of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of PinesSection of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of PinesSection of a Handscroll with Waka and Underpainting of Pines

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.