左隻
右隻
Mt. Ogura
小倉山
- Birth Year
- 1873
- Death Year
- 1930
- Date
- 1909
- Technique, Material, Format
- color on silk, a pair of six-panel folding screens
- Dimension
- each 157.0 x 333.5 cm
- Category
- Nihonga (Japanese-style Painting)
- Inventory Number
- 87-JP-012
The classical Japanese "Tanka" poems anthology "Hyakunin Isshu" includes the following poem.
Maple leaves on Mt. Ogura, if you have enough sense
you will stay as you are until the next imperial visit.*
Fujiwara no Tadahira, a nobleman of the Heian Period (794-1185) who was known in death as “Teishinko,” wrote this poem. In it, he recalls ex-Emperor Uda (the father of Emperor Daigo) being greatly impressed by the maple leaves of Mount Ogura in Kyoto. And it is likely that Shimomura Kanzan painted this picture with the poem in mind. The person on the right is Teishinko, the poet. Perhaps to the left the artist has depicted the maple trees that Teishinko would have seen? Kanzan’s mentor, Okakura Kakuzo (Tenshin), pointed out that Kanzan's objective was to try to draw colorful trees on a gold background.
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)
*Translation from "Chado The Way of Tea" by Sasaki Sanmi (translated by Shaun McCabe and Iwasaki Satoko), Tuttle Publishing (2002)