Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Poem from the Meager Gleanings (Shūi gusō)
Calligrapher Hon'ami Kōetsu Japanese
Not on view
Kōetsu rendered the thirty-one-syllable court poem (waka) by Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), one of Japan’s greatest poets, on a light blue paper decorated with miscanthus grasses. The poem, about the moon over the bay, reads:
Hisakata no
tsuki no hikari o
shirotae ni
shikitsu no ura no l
nami no akikaze
Rays of moonlight
glisten and spread out
like a white cloth over waves
apping at the Bay of Shikitsu
buffeted by autumn winds.
The elegant poem card is mounted as a hanging scroll with tsujigahana silks. Translated literally as “flowers (hana) at the crossroads (tsuji),” the term evokes images of delicate blossoms amid pathways. While the precise meaning of the word remains unclear, it is used today to refer to a textile technique: stitch-resist dyeing and ink painting on a lightweight, plain-weave ground, often embellished with gold-leaf imprinting and embroidery.
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