Hon’ami Köetsu, a central figure in Japanese art at the turn of the seventeenth century, brushed the elegant calligraphy on this over twenty-seven-foot-long scroll. Throughout his lifetime, Köetsu collaborated with other outstanding artists to breathe new life into traditional art forms. He revolutionized the visual effects of classical poetry scrolls, working with artists such as Tawaraya Sötatsu to produce striking designs that complemented his distinctively bold calligraphy.
This scroll features twelve poems—all on the subject of love and written in the traditional thirty-one-syllable format—from the early thirteenth-century imperial poetry anthology Shinkokin wakashü (New Collection of Japanese Poems from Ancient and Modern Times). The designs beneath the calligraphy depict gold- and silver-printed motifs of ivy, mehishiba grasses, and wisteria on nine sheets of paper dyed blue, pale pink, yellow, and cream. The papermaker Kamishi Söji has stamped his rectangular seal at every other join of the paper on the reverse of the scroll, which also shows a random pattern of butterflies stamped in silver and gold. Köetsu’s transcription of the twelve verses shows his characteristic variations of dark and light ink, and broad and fine brushstrokes, along with a scattering of the words among the grasses, which provide lovely, irregular visual patterns. His brushwork is particularly effective in such sections as the wisteria and grasses that span the blue and pink sheets of paper.
Originally the scroll may have been longer, but it suffered fire damage at an unknown date. The careful restoration, undertaken in Japan in the 1980s, deliberately retained some signs of damage, emphasizing the beauty of age and wear, rather than denying or disguising the work’s history. Only a few handscrolls with Köetsu’s calligraphy can be found in collections outside Japan, making this acquisition a major addition to the Museum’s holdings. Felice Fischer, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gifts in Honor of the 125th Anniversary (2002), p. 21.
