A poet-painter of Edo period Japan, Buson was aesthetically-inclined in ways that bridged the ecological and the contemplative. His life and creations mirror the mix of challenges and privileges faced by many of us during the current pandemic.
The Shiro Ukari is a ghost-like Yokai found in Japan. The Shiro Ukari is a ghost-like Yokai that is white in color with a long, bright yellow eyes, and whiskers. The Shiro Ukari only appeared in a few scrolls from the Edo period and it was created by an artist and everything about it and its origin are unknown.
Folio from Uta makura (The Poem of the Pillow) Kitagawa Utamaro 1788 (Edo Period) The British Museum, London, UK
The album ‘Poem of the Pillow’ is a masterpiece among the erotic works by Utamaro (died 1806), and indeed, among the entire erotica of the Ukiyo-e school.
Utamaro has avoided the stereotypical scenes of love-making that were often produced at the time, and instead created an innovative and powerfully sensual design. He uses a very low viewpoint and places the unusually large figures so that they seem to expand beyond the frame of the picture. The eye is shocked by the white of the woman’s skin against the bright scarlet under-kimono, and the transparency of the gauze fabric that covers the couple’s entwined legs only heightens the sensuousness. Finally, however, the viewer focuses on the heads and shoulders. The details emphasise the emotion of the moment: the man’s eye as he gazes intently at his lover, the tender touch of their delicate fingers and the exquisite nape of the woman’s neck. (britishmuseum.org)
Miroirs des acteurs de kabuki (yakusha awase kagami)
Livre avec les portraits avec poèmes (kyôka) d'acteurs célèbres de kabuki . l'auteur des poèmes est Asakusa Ichindo (1755-1820). Editeur : Tôto (Edo) Yamadaya Sanshirô
“Calligraphy in Various Scripts” Sasaki Shougen Handscroll, ink on silk Late 17th-early 18th century
“A common practice of professional calligraphers during the Edo period was to demonstrate the range of their skills by writing out texts or poems in different scripts sequentially in a single handscroll….This handscroll by Shougen…exhibits a full spectrum of both Chinese and Japenese styles of calligraphy. Included are Chinese poems and prose passages written in bold running script (gyousho), regular script (kaisho), clerical script (reisho), and seal script (tensho); these were alternated with waka inscribed in the Japanese syllabary known as kana. After several sections of poems, Shougen added a biography of T'ao Yuan Ming, a sign of her great respect for the Chinese poet….
The end of the scroll contains some of the most extraordinary passages. The climax is two Chinese poems; the first written in clerical script, and the second in an ornamental form of seal script called "bird” script, in which the characters are wonderfully pictorial. These final two verses read:
Spring waters fill the four valleys, Summer clouds envelop the strange pinnacles, The autumn moon raises its bright radiance, Winter peaks dominate the lone pines.
Deer Cries
Yu, yu, cry the deer Grazing in the fields. I have an honored guest; We strum the zither, blow the panpipes, Blow the panpipes, trill the reeds. Take up the basket of offerings– Here is a man who cares for me And will teach me the ways of Chou.“
-Source: Japanese Women Artists 1600-1900, Patricia Fister. Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. 1988
Japanese Heian period poetess Ono no Komachi (c. 825 – c. 900) from the series “Six immortals of poetry” by Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1806-1808; Edo period
