Page 94 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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32 sitional format of calligraphy known through the pines into the koto's
Kosode with diagonal stripes and as scattered writing (chirashigaki), strain, where does the music start? Is
poetry design which was popular in the Nara (710- it on the mountain ridge or on the
794) and Heian periods. During the zither bridge?" (translated by Thomas
Last quarter of seventeenth century
late sixteenth and early seventeenth Blenman Hare).
Tie-dyeing and silk and metallic
thread embroidery on figured centuries artists in the Kyoto area The colorful diagonal stripes on the
silk satin revived this elegant, aristocratic man- kosode appear as a decorative back-
3
156 x 136 (6i /sx 5372) ner of writing. Variations in the size ground, but additional meaning
Tokyo National Museum and thickness of the skillfully tie-dyed can be attached to them because of
and embroidered characters on this a pun in the poem. The poet uses
kosode emulate the writing style of
• Words from a poem by Princess a particle that is homonymous with
Saigú no Nyógo (929 - 985), one of the Hon'ami Kôetsu, a master of calligra- the words for "string" and "ridge";
Thirty-six Immortal Poets, are arranged phy and scattered writing designs. referring to the koto and mountain
asymmetrically on this early Edo- The poem, number 451 in the Collec- imagery, the stripes here could re-
period kosode. The placement of the tion of Gleanings of Japanese Poems (Shüi present either zither strings or the
characters is reminiscent of a compo- wakashu), a mid-Heian-period imper- slope of a mountain. SST
ial anthology, reads: "When winds
blow down from off the peak and