Waka Poem with Printed Gold-and-Silver Underpainting of Cypress Fronds

Overlapping fronds of a cypress tree—whether woodblock printed or created with actual tree leaves remains to be determined—create a dramatic gold and silver background for a dynamically brushed waka (31-syllable court poem) in the distinctive style of Hon’ami Kōetsu, one of the most highly regarded and influential calligrapher of the early seventeenth century. The first two Chinese characters reading “kono kawa 此河 (this stream) are boldly inscribed in highly cursive script in the first column and balanced with the character for yuki 雪(snow) that floats atop the third column from the left. The dominant vertical stroke that punctuates the end of the poem on the far left is simply the kana shi し, which is part of the verb ending rashi, indicating conjecture—yet, in this calligrapher’s brush it becomes an independent abstract shape.

Characteristic of the handscrolls of poetry that Kōetsu and his contemporaries created, the poem is transcribed using a compositional device called “scattered writing” (chirashigaki) in which the columns of characters are of varying length to create a dynamic visual effect. It also allows the calligrapher to help pose a new pace of reading the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable prosodic structure of the poem; it also permits him to enhance graphically the experience of the poetic imagery. In this example, the seventeen syllables of the first three columns are divided from the last two columns by a significant gap. The intervening blank space effectively creates a caesura in the reading; it also underscores the distance between the nearby stream and the unseen heart of the mountains, where snow is melting.

The inscribed poem is an anonymous one from Book Six, “Winter,” of the Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Kokin wakashu, 320).

此河に　もみちはなかる　おく山の　
雪けの水そ　いまヽさるらし

Kono kawa ni
momijiba nagaru
okuyama no
yukige no mizu zo
ima masarurashi

Tinged autumn leaves
drift along this stream,
so it seems that the snow
must now be melting faster,
deep in the mountains.

(Trans. John T. Carpenter)