Grasses and Moon

A large circular moon floats in the sky above reeds arising from the lower right corner of a vast horizontal picture nearly six feet wide. Everything is painted in ink except the moon, an area of the silk ground left in reserve and defined only by ink outline.

According to an inscription by Bunchō at top right, the picture was painted under the following circumstances: “On the beautiful night of mid-autumn [fifteenth day of the eight month], 1817, as I wandered along the Sumida River, the clear moon appeared to shine as brightly as the noonday sun. The scene before me looked just as it does here. Seven days later, I painted this work and presented it for Master Daidōji’s consideration.” The full moon that Bunchō admired, perhaps through a cluster of reeds growing along the riverbank, seems to have inspired this compelling composition.

In the woodblock-print series Famous Restaurants in Edo (Edo kōmei kaitei zukushi), the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige included a scene of the interior of the restaurant Yaozen which shows a closely similar painting signed by Bunchō hanging from the transom of a reception room. Thus there is a strong possibility that Hiroshige actually viewed this painting in Edo.