著者

白畑 よし

雑誌

美術研究 = The bijutsu kenkiu : the journal of art studies

巻号頁・発行日

no.193, pp.35-51, 1957-11-07

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The decoration of the Sanjūrokunin Kashū in the Honganji Collectioh has been widely known as one of the most ornate of the kind, executed with the utmost employment of all varieties of materials and techniques available at the time of its making (about 1110-1118). This fact has heretofore been simply explained as illustrative of the aesthetic taste in the Heian Period, but according to the present author's opinion they are designed in conformity with the classifications of subject matters of the poems in the Kokin Waka Rokujō (Kokin Anthology in Six Volumes). The Kokin Waka Rokujō was compiled at the time when the Kokin Waka-shū was edited; it classifies the poems therein, after the model of the Chinese Hakushi Rokujō (in Chinese; Pai Shih Liu T'ieh, poems by Pai Lo-t'ien in six volumes), into five hundred odd groups by their subject matters. The major subject groups in the Kokin Waka Rokujō are the four seasons, which constitute the most conspicuous aspects of nature, and love, which is the most vehement of human sensations. The five sections richest in descriptive elements among the decorative patterns in the San jūrokunin Kashū, Honganji version, can be interpreted to represent these five major subjects: the cherry-blossoms (spring) for the Yoshinobu-shū (collected poems by Yoshinobu), the boat and reeds (summer) for the Shigeyuki-shū, the reeds and waves (autumn) for the Nobuaki-shū, the sparrows and bamboos (winter) for the Motozane-shū, and the child embracing a cat (love) for the Yoshinobu-shū. The scenes of the four seasons are drawn under poems and prose writings which refer in some way or other to the objects or sights involved; the pictures themselves also convey the atmospheres of respective seasons. The picture of a child with a cat can be reasonably associated with Kashiwagi, the hero of one of the love romances told in the famous Tales of Genji. Drawings connected with poetry in the Heian Period, termed uta-e ("poem-pictures") or ashide-e ("reed-manner pictures", drawings with characters or letters from the text of poems concealed scattered among them), mostly contain some literary puzzles to be solved on the part of the observer. The underdrawings in the San jūrokunin Kashū under discussion are examples of the sort. It is to be noted that they comprise two different kinds: one reflecting the manner of the Chinese Sung painting, and the other in the pure Japanese style which has something in common with the paintings illustrating the Tales of Genji traditionally attributed to FUJIWARA Takayoshi. Many of the decorations in the subject work, either drawn with the brush or presented by scattered sand- or thread -like strips of gold and silver leaf, represent realistically or symbolically the sub-divisions of the seasonal subject matters in the Kokin Waka Rokujō, such as rain, wind, snow, haze, and storm, as well as such sights of nature as the river, sea, water-stream, mountain, rice-field, grassy plain, flowers, butterflies, insects, etc. These seasonal aspects of nature are beautifully conventionalized to create a rhythmical variety, and the texts of the poems in kana are inscribed over them in flowing cursive script to match the rhythms of the decoration. The feelings of the four seasons here appear to convey the atmosphere of the old capital Kyoto, where they are enhanced by its beautiful sceneries.