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transferred to kana calligraphy the same enthusiasm once reserved for the execu-
tion of works in Chinese characters, in particular the practice of following
certain esteemed handwriting models and stylistic experimentation. Thus,

when Kōetsu, the most highly regarded calligrapher of the Momoyama period,
sought inspiration for a dynamic new style of Japanese-style writing, he looked
back some five hundred years to the masterpieces of the Heian court.

Calligraphy and painting flourished during the Momoyama and early Edo
periods. The elegant, highly conventionalized scripts of traditional court cal-
ligraphy that had evolved during Japan’s medieval era — from the late twelfth
through the late sixteenth century — gained wider readership among not only
courtiers but also samurai, merchants, and artisans. This predilection for study-

ing, copying, and reinterpreting ancient court styles is reflected not only in the
experimental yet highly refined scripts of Kōetsu, but also in the brush writing
of his contemporaries, including the courtiers Konoe Nobutada (1565 – 1614) and

Karasumaru Mitsuhiro (1579 – 1638) as well as the Shingon-monk painter
Shōkadō Shōjō, all of whom found inspiration in the flowing scripts of the
Heian period while creating thoroughly modern innovations.
Tea gatherings were a preferred setting in which to enjoy the poem scrolls
and shikishi (poem cards) of calligraphers such as Kōetsu and Shōjō. Kōetsu,

who had studied the etiquette of tea ceremony with tea master Furuta Oribe
(1534/44 – 1615), scion of a prestigious samurai family, was in regular contact with
other warrior-class tea practitioners. Although Kōetsu was born to a family of

sword specialists who had served the Ashikaga shoguns and various other warlords
during Japan’s age of civil war, his tastes were more closely attuned to courtly
sensibilities. He was, in fact, representative of Kyoto’s cultured elite during the
Momoyama period and helped encourage the revival of traditional aristocratic
aesthetics in painting and calligraphy.

As part of his privileged upbringing, Kōetsu no doubt had access to various
models of orthodox court calligraphy, including the ancient examples of Japanese
and Chinese calligraphy preserved in the Shōren’in, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto

that historically was a training center for court calligraphers. Kōetsu is also said to
have received training in his late thirties under Prince Sonchō (1552 – 1597), head of
the influential Shōren’in school. Calligraphy models could be used in various
ways: either slavishly copied, as beginners were encouraged to do, or as the basis
poems

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