Artist: Hon'ami Kōetsu
Date: 601
Size: 24.5cm x 35.0cm
Technique: Paper
Aki no uchi wa aware shiraseshi kaze no ne no hageshisa sōru fuyu wa ki ni keri While autumn lingers,sadness in the soundof the howling windssignals that winteris already on its way. —Trans. John T. Carpenter Silver-micaed butterflies are perched on stems of grass. They face to the right—the opposite of the movement of the calligrapher’s brush, and of the reader’s eye. Impressed on age-mellowed pale gray paper, the bright, ethereal butterfly motifs would normally be reserved for springtime. Pretty as they are, the image clashes with a poem that begins with the Chinese character for autumn, aki (秋), written with the two parts of the character reversed as a calligraphic flourish. The poem, by the courtier-poet Fujiwara no Norinaga (1109–1180), is from the imperially commissioned Collection of Japanese Poems of a Thousand Years (Senzai wakashū). The work is a section from a longer handscroll; the calligrapher’s black square seal, reading “Kōetsu,” would have marked the end of the scroll.
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