Page 398 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

237
from
earlier Japanese aristocratic calligra-
century
Emperor Go-Hanazono Fine calligraphy is the true topic of this fragment phy styles. Kumogami (also called uchigumori,
have been a much longer
from what must
hand-
1419-1470 scroll or set of scrolls. The subject on which the "pounded cloudiness") is a paper in which long
SELECTIONS FROM THE TALE OF GENJI writer exercised his skill was selected passages fibers, dyed blue (and sometimes purple), are
from the classic novel of Heian (794-1185) court mixed into the pulp to create cloudlike patterns.
c. 1460 life, the Tale of Genji. On this ground a landscape with prominent
Japanese The work is reasonably attributed to Emperor willow, marsh plants, and bush clover was painted
handscroll; ink on decorated "cloud" paper Go-Hanazono, the astute and learned but power- before the calligrapher set to work. In deliberately
(kumogami) less sovereign who at the age of ten succeeded the rustic fashion this paper evokes the elegantly
2
33.4 x 105.8 (i3 /8 x 41%)
childless Emperor Shoko and reigned until 1465, decorated papers of the Heian and Kamakura
Daio-ji, Kyoto (housed at Kyoto National Museum) when he abdicated in favor of his son Go-Tsuchi- (1185-1333) periods, and is a striking foil for the
mikado (see cat. 212). During his reign, central self-consciously refined calligraphy. j.u.
government virtually disintegrated, as the uneasy
hegemony of the Ashikaga shoguns declined and
real power devolved on the landed provincial
barons at the head of their private armies. The
Onin War (1467-1477) — a ferocious and ulti-
mately pointless conflict between two such 238
warlords — ravaged Kyoto in the last years of
Go-Hanazono's life. Ikkyu Sojun
Deprived of all political power, Go-Hanazono, 1394-1481
like many other court aristocrats of the period,
pursued scholarly and artistic interests. These PRECEPTS OF THE SEVEN BUDDHAS
cultural pursuits might be considered "reaction- c. 1460-1465
ary" in that they espoused Japanese classical liter- Japanese
ature and nativist painting and calligraphy styles, hanging scroll; ink on paper
in contradistinction to the Sinophile leanings 133.8 X 41.6 ($2 /8 X l6 /SJ
3
5
of the Ashikaga shogunal circle.
The passages here transcribed from Lady Shinju-an, Daitoku-ji f Kyoto
Murasaki's eleventh-century romance have as a
common thread impossible or unrequited love. "Do not commit evil deeds; strive to do good."
The first concerns Yugiri, Prince Genji's son, These two precepts, each composed of four verti-
who, rebuffed in his wooing of his best friend's cally written characters, are the first two of
widow, is brought close to tears by the combina- four similarly constructed verses. The latter two
tion of moonlight, the sound of rushing water, verses read: "Purify your thoughts — this is what
and the cry of a stag (Murasaki 1976, chap. 39, the Buddhas teach." Together, the four verses
p. 681). In the second Prince Niou, Genji's constitute precept 183 of the Dhammapdda, an
womanizing grandson, speaks of braving snowy ancient and enormously popular compendium of
peaks in pursuit of his heart's desire (Murasaki basic Buddhist teachings which was translated
1976, chap. 51, p. 993). from Pali into Chinese at least four times between
The calligraphy is in the Chokuhitsu style, a the third and tenth century. Once translated into
rather affected hybrid derived in the fourteenth Japanese from Chinese, these verses were desig-

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