Hakuzosu the Fox-Spirit
This lightly brushed image of a fox garbed as a Buddhist nun acquires a clever, perhaps personal dimension in the poem that the nun Rengetsu inscribed in her much-admired script. The delicate vivacity of its classic style well suits her vision of a long-standing superstition holding that foxes transform themselves into human form to bewitch the unwary, particularly at twilight.
A trickster
in Sagano fields
at twilight
my tail in plumes of grass—
Will it look like a sleeve?
signed Rengetsu
There is a play of word and image elucidated by the donor of this scroll. The word obana, written with characters meaning "tail-flower," is classic poetic diction for autumn plumes of susuki, the tall grasses painted here to signify Sagano, a place name often used in poetry as a pun on saga, "one's nature."
A trickster
in Sagano fields
at twilight
my tail in plumes of grass—
Will it look like a sleeve?
signed Rengetsu
There is a play of word and image elucidated by the donor of this scroll. The word obana, written with characters meaning "tail-flower," is classic poetic diction for autumn plumes of susuki, the tall grasses painted here to signify Sagano, a place name often used in poetry as a pun on saga, "one's nature."
Artwork Details
- Title: Hakuzosu the Fox-Spirit
- Artist: Ōtagaki Rengetsu (Japanese, 1791–1875)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: 19th century
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink, color, and silver on paper
- Dimensions: 38 1/4 x 11 7/8 in. (97.2 x 30.2 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Donald Keene, 1998
- Object Number: 1998.483.2
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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Ōtagaki Rengetsu
Ōtagaki Rengetsu
Ōtagaki Rengetsu
Ōtagaki Rengetsu
19th century
Ōtagaki Rengetsu
late 19th century
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