Page 197 - Japanese Art Nov 9 2017 London
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The poem alluded to in the design (and quoted in full on the storage Pining Wind: A Cycle of No Plays, Ithaca NY, Cornell University, 1978,
boxes) was originally written before 1005 but reappears near the end accessible at http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/No/TylHago.html.
of the famous No play Hagoromo (The Feather Mantle). A localized
version of a story that appears in many cultures around the world, Not only did the poem provide the lacquer artist with romantic and
Hagoromo tells of a fisherman who takes possession of a magical appealing subject matter, it shares the same first line and other
feather-mantle, left behind by a celestial nymph, which he finds vocabulary with Japan’s national anthem, Kimi ga yo, which was
hanging on a bough, as seen on the lid of the writing box. The nymph gaining in prestige during the early decades of the twentieth century.
demands its return and the fisherman agrees to give it back if she
will dance for him. At the end of the play, she gradually disappears We know little of Fujiwara Ogetsu, the artist responsible for the
beyond Mount Fuji, as seen of the document box: ‘And so time runs, decoration of these boxes, but their superb quality attests to the
the celestial feather mantle wind-borne billows down the shore; pine high level of lacquer (and metalwork) patronage and artistry in Kyoto
barrens of Mio, Float Isle’s clouds, Mount Ashitaka, yes, and Fuji’s during the early decades of the twentieth century; see Takao Yo,
towering peak fade out, mist-veiled into high Heaven she is lost from ‘Kinsei maki-eshi meikan (Dictionary of Early-Modern and Modern
view.’ For the English translations cited here, see Royall Tyler, Lacquerers’ signatures)’, in Rokusho, 24 (March 2005), p.115, l.2.
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