- Museum number
- 1907,0531,0.363
- Description
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Colour woodblock print, hashira-e. The priest Saigyo dressed in black monastic robes with bundle and travelling hat on back, leaning on stick and gazing up at peak of Mt Fuji rising above pink clouds; pine trees of Miho no Matsubara on spits of land jutting in from either side. Signed.
- Production date
- 1770s
- Dimensions
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Height: 63.10 centimetres
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Width: 10.80 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Clark 2001
This is a serious, orthodox treatment of the subject parodied in the previous. The monk-poet Saigyo is dressed in simple, black monastic robes with a bundle and travelling hat on his back and leaning on a stick. He looks intently up at the peak of Mt Fuji which rises above pink clouds, the tall format of the print serving to emphasize the height of the mountain and its far distance. The pine trees on spits of land that jut in from either side must represent Miho no Matsubara. This is not an episode which appears in any of the early anthologies relating to Saigyo's works, nor the early illustrated biographies of his life; in fact, it is not clear at present from where exactly the subject derives. Early Edo period accounts of his life may have fabricated the episode as a parallel to Ariwara no Narihira's famous 'Journey to the East' ('Azuma-kudari', cat. 1). Thus Saigyo was inspired by the example of Narihira's 9th-century poem about Fuji (cat. 1) to compose his own verse in tribute to both the mountain and the earlier poem:
Trailing on the wind, 'Kaze ni nabiku'
The smoke of Mount Fuji 'Fuji no keburi no'
Fades in the sky, 'Sora ni kiete'
Moving like my thoughts 'Yukue mo shiranu'
Toward some unknown end. 'Wa ga omoi kana.'
('Hizo ukiyo-e taikan', vol. 6, 1989, no. 43 (commentary by Okubo Jun'ichi). The translation is by Burton Watson, 'Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Hut', New York, Columbia University Press, 1991, p. 210)
There is the record of a painting by Kano Tan'yu (1602-74) that may be an early image of this subject (Kanei Shiun,ed., 'Toyo gadai soran', Tokyo, Rekishi Tosho-sha, 1975, p. 341. The painting is said to have been formerly in the collection of the Tokugawa of Kii Province), and a two-colour print by Nishimura Shigenaga that must date from about the 1740s shows a similar, conventional treatment ('Genshoku ukiyo-e daihyakka jiten, vol. 5: Gadai', 1981, pl. 194, p. 71 (commentary by Suzuki Juzo)).
Isoda Koryusai was a pupil of Harunobu who particularly excelled in print compositions in the tall, narrow 'pillar picture' ('hashira-e', or 'pillar-hiding', 'hashira-kakushi') format. More than two hundred and fifty pillar prints by him are known, easily making him the most prolific designer in this format. Almost all of these would appear to date from the 1770s. Among the pillar prints are five different versions of Saigyo gazing at Mt Fuji (Jacob Pins, 'The Japanese Pillar Print: Hashira-e', London, Robert G. Sawers, 1982, nos 276-525. The five prints of Saigyo and Mt Fuji are nos 491-5).
Literature:
Binyon, Laurence. 'A Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Woodcuts in the British Museum'. London, British Museum, 1916, [Koryusai] no. 42.
Pins, Jacob. 'The Japanese Pillar Print, Hashira-e'. London, Robert G. Sawers, 1982, no. 493.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2001, 11 May-29 Jul, BM Japanese Galleries, '100 Views of Mount Fuji'
2009 Jul 1- Oct 25, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
- Acquisition date
- 1907
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1907,0531,0.363