Carp and Waterweeds
Yōgetsu Japanese
Inscribed by Mokumoku Dōjin Japanese
Not on view
Little is known about Yōgetsu, who was active as a monk in the mountains northeast of the ancient capital of Nara. He is sometimes cited as a follower of the master painter Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506). Above Yōgetsu’s auspicious image of a pair of fish swimming in a pond, Mokumoku Dōjin, about whom little is also known, has inscribed a poem that recalls the carp’s role as a vehicle of the Daoist immortal Qingao:
Wind whips the grass along
the riverbank, frigid at dusk.
A single ray of brilliant red
illuminates the white shoal.
If Qingao were here,
he would not be riding a crane—
He’d have [his carp] shaking their heads
and snapping their tails,
spinning waves into whirlpools.
—Trans. Aaron Rio
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