著者

ウィルソン リチャード L. 小笠原 佐江子

出版者

国際基督教大学キリスト教と文化研究所

雑誌

人文科学研究(キリスト教と文化) = Humanities: Christianity and Culture (ISSN:00733938)

巻号頁・発行日

no.49, pp.(1)-(129), 2017-12-15

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Iconography of Kenzan Ware: Japanese Poetic Themes: Waka, Monogatari, and Noh Abetted by peace and prosperity, and by the strategic utility of cultivated pastimes in an era of regime change, Japanese literary themes enjoyed an unprecedented florescence in the seventeenth century. As scions of a wealthy merchant house serving the highest echelon of the imperial court, the Ogata brothers Korin (1658-1716) and Kenzan (1663-1743) were steeped in classical verse (waka), narrative (monogatari), and drama (noh) traditions. With the decline of their family business at the end of the century both brothers were compelled to convert this “habitus” into production of painting, lacquer and ceramic design. Their contributions form the core of what came to be known as the Rinpa school. The early-modern treatment of the indigenous literary tradition is marked by new modes of packaging and dissemination. While prose and poetry themes are hardly new to the crafts, Kenzan’s synthesis of theme, calligraphy, painting and ceramic form is entirely without precedent. In order to take full measure of this approach, the authors surveyed all known works inscribed with Japanese poetry and noh-drama lyrics attributable to Kenzan and his workshop, totaling 20 sets (as presently constituted) and individual objects, for a total of 223 pieces. All inscriptions were transliterated and traced to their classical sources. Below we summarize the findings for waka and noh, with special attention to selection, pictorialization, and text-picture-object relationship. Monogatari and poet- portrait (kasen) themes are relatively few in number and thus excluded from this summary. For ceramics inscribed with waka, Kenzan showed a preference for poetry by and related to Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241) and for poetry by Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455-1537). The Teika-legacy material includes “Teika’s Ten Styles of Poetry” (Teika jittei, 1207-1213), Manuscript of Remnants (Shui guso, 1216), Single Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu, 1235), and “New Six Poetry Immortals” (Shin rokkasen, 1505). The Sanetaka verses are all extracted from Jewels of Snow (Setsugyokushu, n.d.). The interest in Teika reflects his centrality in the medieval literary tradition and posthumous links to noh, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. Kenzan was in agreement with his contemporaries in frequently using “Birds and Flowers of the Twelve Months” (Junikagetsu waka, 1214), originally included in Shui guso. As for Sanetaka, there is a tenuous connection to the Mikohidari line of poets descended from Teika, and Sanetaka is renowned in the tea ceremony for instructing Takeno Joo (1502-55) in Teika’s poetics; additionally Kenzan probably favored Sanetaka for the topics of his poems, especially “poems on things” (daiei) that were readily adaptable to pictures. Pictorialization of waka (uta-e) accelerated in the mid-seventeenth century after a long hiatus. Decoration on Kenzan’s Teika twelve-month dishes relate closely to painted versions, especially those in an album in the Idemitsu Museum bearing the signature of Kano Tanyu (1602-74). Other poetic vignettes have a basis in the kai-e (literally “poem-meaning picture”), abbreviated scenes that first appear around 1660, inserted above portraits of classical poets (kasen-e) also associated with Tanyu. The kai-e becomes a fixture in illustrated manuals from the 1670s, exemplified by Hishikawa Moronobu’s Single Poems by One Hundred Poets, with Commentary (Hyakunin isshu zosansho, 1678). The simplification and modularizing tendency in the kai-e commended it to ceramic décor. Befitting a man of letters, Kenzan adroitly manipulated the relationship between the text, picture, and vessel. The permutations include 1) dishes with picture on the front and poetry on the back, 2) dishes with picture and poetry on the front, 3) paired dishes with pictures and the first and second halves of a poem on the respective halves, 4) the same as previous but without pictures, and 4), dishes with (complete) poems only. The strategy reflects the social aspect of the waka tradition, rooted in uta-awase but with playful innovations like cards (karuta) reaching maturity in the seventeenth century. Kenzan and his brothers participated in non-guild noh drama (tesarugaku) from an early age, and recent scholarship has underlined the influence of noh on Korin’s art. Kenzan’s experience is revealed in sets of dishes decorated with noh-drama themes. The front of each dish is painted with an evocative scene or object related to a specific play and the back features an excerpt from that play’s script. An originary model for the pictures can be found in hand-painted covers of deluxe noh libretti (utaibon) from the early seventeenth century, but Kenzan’s schematization parallels the aforementioned kai-e. The calligraphic excerpts on the back of the dishes are key passages from the respective plays: these excerpts, called ko-utai, were expected recitation material for celebratory and social events, and ko-utai compendia were best-sellers in Kenzan’s day. The authors have tried to demonstrate that Kenzan wares with Japanese literary themes are closely related and indebted to early modern appropriations of classical Japanese literature and trends in its pictorialization. However the versatile design strategies—particularly the sensitive deployment of writing, centered around calligraphic inscriptions from Kenzan’s own hand—must be seen to reflect the sensibilities and skills of Kenzan himself. This helps to explain why Edo-period Kenzan imitators rarely attempted to work in this mode.