Page 213 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

cat. 120
Hanabusa Itchô,
Pariniruana o/Ariiuara no Narihira,
hanging scroll;
ink and color on paper,
7
7
78.5X48(30 /8Xi8 /s),
Tokyo National Museum

2 1 2

fig. i
Hanabusa Itchô
Pariniruana of the Buddha,
eighteenth century,
hanging scroll;
ink and color on paper,
5
62.6X46.! (24 /8X iSYs),
The Clark Family Collection,
Hanford, California

parinirvana was standardized in the more than forty extant pre-Edo Japanese versions of the scene that

date from as early as the eleventh century. A number of Edo versions, however, recast this scriptural
scene with less canonical cult figures. The revered poet Matsuo Bashó, for example, became the subject
of one nirvana scene, and the passing of the popular kabuki actor Arashi Kitsuzaburó was similarly
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commemorated. A painting by Hanabusa Itchô (cat. 120), indicates the lengths to which the model was
stretched. Pictured here in place of Shakyamuni is Ariwara no Narihira (825 - 880), the idealized courtly
lover in the Tales of Ise, renowned for his poetic and libidinal pursuits. Instead of the Buddha's grief-
struck disciples, women of a variety of social and religious statuses mourn their collective loss. Such
a humorous visual pun, replacing the religious with the ribald, suggests the irreverent possibilities
of the age.
A parinirvana painting by Itó Jakuchú (1716 -1800) shares the same joke but reveals a more subtle
and even devotional sense of humor (cat. 121). Here the canonical scene of the Buddha's death is portrayed