Poem Accompanying an Over Robe (Uchikake) with a Bamboo Painting by Gion Nankai

In 1824, on the occasion of the marriage of a young Karakane woman and the inclusion of the overrobe in her dowry, the prominent poet and Confucian scholar Rai San’yō was commissioned to compose a poem about the garment. This kanshi (a Japanese poem written in Chinese) is the result.

Multiple interpretations of San’yō's poem have been suggested: a conservative reading focuses on Nankai's calligraphic painting of the garment, while another refers to more overtly sensual content. At one point, in an abrupt departure from the narrative, the poet addresses the reader (and Nankai), warning of the dangers of excess by mentioning the disgraced Chinese official Yang Shen (1488–1559), who was exiled on account of his hedonistic lifestyle.In his postscript to the poem, San’yō writes that he agreed to compose the poem because Nankai had agreed to paint the over robe. Perhaps San’yō felt the need to justify his involvement in a project devoted to a woman’s garment by couching it in terms of his relationship to his Nanga forebear.

Long sleeves of twilled silk from Wu,
as white as snow.
Upon them painted bamboo thrusts
as if alive.

Madam [Shimo]mura, from the North Hall
of the Karakane family,
In her wedding trousseau,
Precious without compare.
Carefully wrapped up at the bottom of a chest,
no one dared wear it.
Her grandmother's thing,
handed down by her mother.

Who could have painted such beautiful bamboo?
The record states:
by Gion known as Yoichi.
Ah, Nankai, was it he or not?
For the one in the ladies’ chamber,
he painted the skirt of the robe.

At that time, old man Karakane
was a dilettante.
On famous gardens,
he composed splendid poems.
Once he persuaded the master
[Nankai] to stay at his mansion.
The whole household rejoiced,
waited upon him,
and surrounded him like a human screen.

At times, with wine at his side,
he dipped into the ink.
Droplets make Xiang rain
from the movements of his hand.
[The brush,] like rising hare and
swooping falcon, without care
for where it might land.
Clothes and socks of the same fabric,
the brush abruptly flew.
The fair ones stretched out silk in
substitution of the silk canvas.
Facing straight at the skirts, here thin
here plump, contesting.

Sir, do you not know that formerly
Yang Shen was exiled to Dian
[Yunnan] and Shu [Sichuan]?
On the pretty girl's robe always
remains the scent of wine and ink.
Men say,
"Enough to wear down a man's spirit."
But, what the famous did was unfathomable.
At times, with wine at his side,
he dipped into the ink.
Droplets make Xiang rain
from the movements of his hand.
[The brush,] like rising hare and
swooping falcon, without care
for where it might land.
Clothes and socks of the same fabric,
the brush abruptly flew.
The fair ones stretched out silk in
substitution of the silk canvas.
Facing straight at the skirts, here thin
here plump, contesting.

The lady still knows how to respect
old excellence.
What her family instructions urged
was unlike present fashions.
Nowadays, the eyes of rich young men
in silk trousers are callow.
She is willing to believe that ink traces
are superior to fine silk garments.

I make a song to sing of this affair.
What coils in the bosom is ten-
thousand-foot bamboo.
—Rai San'yô
(Trans. Sadako Ohki, 2009)

[ Harry G. C. Packard American, Tokyo, until 1975; donated and sold to MMA].

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination," July 24, 2019–January 31, 2021.