- Museum number
- 1913,0501,0.362
- Description
-
Painting, hanging scroll, mitate-e. Parody of Fujiwara Teika's cottage at Mt Ogura: Courtesan, wearing man's striped jacket and with two swords stuck through sash, standing outside gate of Teika's cottage, sheltered from autumn shower by maid with umbrella; inside hut handsome youth playing flute, accompanied by blind musician on koto. Ink, colour and gold on paper.
- Production date
- 1716-1736 (c.)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 42.20 centimetres
-
Width: 58.30 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Clark 1992
Legends concerning the love affair between the poet Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241) and Princess Shokushi at Teika's cottage Shigure no Chin ('Arbour of the Autumn Showers') at Mt Ogura in Kyoto had already formed the basis for the No play 'Teika'. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries these were adapted for performance in more popular narrative forms - in particular, Tosa 'joruri' versions in which Princess Shokushi visits Teika's cottage disguised as a young dandy ('wakashu').
In this painting the place of Princess Shokushi is taken by an eighteenth-century courtesan, wearing a man's striped 'haori' jacket and with two swords stuck through her sash, standing outside the gate of Teika's cottage, sheltered from the autumn shower by a maid with an umbrella. Inside the hut a handsome youth, impersonating Teika, plays the 'shakuhachi' flute, accompanied by a blind musician on the 'koto'. This technique of repopulating well-known literary or historical episodes with characters in contemporary dress - a common convention in the theatre throughout the Edo period - is known as 'mitate'. Though this term is translated for convenience with the English word 'parody', the motives underlying 'mitate-e' ('"mitate" pictures') are many and varied, ranging from salacious fun-poking through visual puns and riddles to a simple desire to emulate or even appropriate the emblems and values of the classical past. The ability of an Edo audience to savour the odd conjunctions and transmogrifications of these pictures which bring together such disparate worlds gives evidence of an enviable flexibility of mind.
Examples exist of 'mitate' in paintings of the seventeenth century, but it was the Ukiyo-e artist Okumura Masanobu (1686-1764) who vastly expanded and codified the range of subjects suitable for reworking in this way, in a series of printed albums dating from the first two decades of the eighteenth century. Though the figures in the present painting are highly reminiscent of Masanobu's style - and the work may certainly be attributed to his circle - the composition lacks the discipline of his famous version of the subject in the Tokyo National Museum ('NU', vol. 3 (1982), no. 29), in which the figure of the young-dandy-impersonating-Princess-Shokushi-impersonating-a-young-dandy is given much more prominence. A further unsigned version of the subject is in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Stern 1973, no. 39).
Literature:
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, BW no. 5.
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Asahi 1996
京都•小倉山にある藤原定家（1162－1241）の別荘•時雨亭で交わされた定家と式子内親王の情事の逸話は、すでに謡曲「定家」の中に取り上げられていた。17世紀から18世紀初頭、これらはより大衆的な物語となって様々な芸能に題材を提供している。特に土佐浄瑠璃では、式子内親王が若衆の姿を装って定家の別荘を訪れる場面が描かれる。
本図では、式子内親王の代わりに当世風の遊女が描かれている。彼女は男物の縞の羽織をまとい、帯には2本の刀を差し、野分が脇からさしかける傘で秋雨を凌いで別荘の門前に立つ。あづまやの中では、目の不自由な琴奏者の伴奏に併せて、定家を装った紅顔の若者が尺八を吹く。このように、よく知られた物語や歴史上の逸話に当世風の人物を当てはめる技法を見立という。これは江戸時代をとおして、舞台ではよく使われた手法であった。英語で言えば ‘parody’ にあたるだろうか。見立絵の根底には、視覚による連想や謎かけなど軽い遊びの感覚もあれば、古典古代の象徴や価値を手本とし、更にはそれを自らの中に取り込もうとする根元的な欲望もあり、非常に多様である。これらの絵画に見られるように、かなり異なった世界を簡単につなぎ合わせてしまう奇妙な結合や変形の手法を江戸の観衆が嗜むことができたのは、彼らが羨ましいほど柔軟な精神を備えていたからに他ならない。
見立の作例は早くは17世紀から見いだされるが、それに相応しい主題のレパートリーを拡大し、集成したのは浮世絵師•奥村政信（1686－1764）であった。それらは1700－20年頃に制作された一連の版画集にまとめられている。本図の人物は政信様式に非常に近いが（おそらく政信派に同定されるであろう）、東京国立博物館所蔵の政信作品（楢崎宗重監修『肉筆浮世絵』第3巻 1982年 集英社 29図）ほどの構図上の厳しさはない。東京国立博物館では、若い洒落者を装った式子内親王に扮する若衆が画幅により大きく捉えられている。なお、落款のない同主題の作品がワシントンのフリーア美術館に所蔵されている（Stern, Harold P. ‘Ukiyo-e Painting’, Washington DC, Freer Gallery of Art, 1973, no.39）。
（荒木康子（福島県立美術館））
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Arbour of the Autumn Showers
- Acquisition date
- 1913
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings belonging to Arthur Morrison was purchased by Sir William Gwynne-Evans, who presented it to the British Museum in 1913.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1913,0501,0.362
- Additional IDs
-
Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1392 (Japanese Painting Number)
