Although ceramics were his forte, Kenzan occasionally tested his skills as a painter, and there is an artless, rugged energy to his works on paper that effectively complements his idiosyncratic, expressive calligraphy. As if tossed by the same breeze that moves the leaves of ivy, Kenzan’s freely inscribed waka poem dangles down the right half of this painting, augmenting his vision pictorially as well as poetically: Kakaru shimowaga aki naranumatsukaze yachiru no urami notsuta no momijiba Though not yet autumn,winds through the pinesblow all around me,and I dread they will scatterthe crimson leaves of ivy. —Trans. John T. Carpenter The image recalls a famous episode from the tenth-century Ise Stories (Ise monogatari) in which the protagonist encounters an itinerant monk along an ivy-strewn path on Mount Utsu.
