Page 422 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

233 In the central panels a young woman
Hikone Screen writes letters or poems on long sheets
of paper, while behind her a cour-
c. 16205-16405 tesan's youthful apprentice (kamuro)
Six panels (originally connected in
gestures to the right. Another cour-
screen format); ink, color, and tesan leans pensively on an armrest
gold on paper with a letter dangling in one hand.
1
Assembled 94.6 x 274.8 (^1 U x loSVs) Behind her a male client reads what
Hikone Castle Museum, Shiga we may assume to be a love letter
National Treasure
from a paramour.
• Against a background of brilliant The activities of the figures in the left
gold leaf and, in the leftmost two three panels of the screen allude to
panels, a six-panel landscape screen, the elements of the Chinese painting 42 1
we spy on fifteen denizens of a demi- theme of the Four Accomplishments
monde setting in early seventeenth- or Four Leisurely Pursuits: the koto or
century Kyoto. While its themes hark zither (Chinese: qin), go, calligraphy,
back to traditional painting, this work and painting. Here, instead of the
anticipates developments in genre traditional Chinese references, we
painting in which backgrounds would discover men and women enjoying
completely disappear and images of the shamisen, sugoroku (a backgam-
women would be presented in dra- mon-like game, see cat. 244), love
matic robes but with masklike, almost letters, and a painting within a paint-
expressionless faces. The brushwork ing. In front of the Chinese-style
is impressive, not only in the compul- screen a young samurai and two
sively meticulous rendering of the women banter over a game of sug-
landscape screen within a screen, but oroku. The woman looking on, whose
also in the careful delineation of hair is arranged in a magnificent
details in the textile designs. Beyond hyógo mage style, uses the edge of her
the technical finesse, the screen in- underrobe to hide a giggle or smile.
triguingly captures the irony of people A blind minstrel strums on a shami-
who are supposed to be indulging sen, the three-stringed instrument
in playful pastimes but seem to be associated with kabuki and the
caught in a limbo of frustrated desires. pleasure quarters beginning around
1610. To the left is a young female
Since there are few hints of a specific geisha playing a shamisen, head
setting, interior is easily confused bowed; we cannot see her face, but
with exterior, but the clothes, poses, infer her beauty from the long strand
and leisurely pursuits shown on the of hair, tied with a simple ribbon. In
left four panels suggest an interior
the foreground a young apprentice
bordello scene, the right two panels kneels with tea cup in hand, serving
perhaps a setting just outside. On the her master. A male geisha also
right a courtesan (with freshly washed plays a shamisen.
hair?) in pale blue robes with a torn
banana leaf motif enters the scene, The six panels of the Hikone Screen
accompanied by a young apprentice were once connected (and perhaps
carrying a sprig of camellia blossoms. even originally formed part of a
They approach a young samurai lean- larger set of screens), but are now
ing provocatively on his long sword. separated for conservation purposes.
Oblivious to her companions, another The screen's name derives from the
courtesan glances at her pet dog. Hikone fief, which was controlled
by daimyo of the li family in whose
possession the screen remained
until recently. JTC

233 (detail)