著者

真保 亨

雑誌

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

巻号頁・発行日

no.325, pp.10-24, 1983-09-30

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The Handscroll Painting of Thirty-six Celebrated Poets of the Narikane version is partly preserved in the form of fragments. Only through a copy is known the original overall composition of the handscroll before it was segmented. What is depicted in the copy are the celebrated thirty-six poets selected by FUJIWARA no Kintō, being lined up in a row; eignteen of them are seated on the left facing right, the other eighteen are on the right facing left. The handscroll painting, however, does not strike the viewers as a coherent entity due to the irregularity of the sizes of figures, and imparts a sense of unnaturalness. The author ascribes these shortcomings to the fact that the figures in this version are based on an earlier handscroll, that is, Poets from various Periods accompanied by their respective poems (Jidai-Fudō Uta-Awase E) dated approximately to the second year of the Katei Era (1236). The original of this Poets from Various Periods having been lost, the author used, among other copies, a complete sketch copy made by Tan'yū KANŌ now owned by Kyoto National Museum for the comparison of the portraitures. As a result, eleven of the thirty-six poets in the Narikane version are found to be faithful copies, while ten are reversed copies, of the corresponding poets in this Poets from Various Periods. The remaining fifteen poets are reversed reproductions or modified reproductions of others of the hundred poets in the same Poets of Various Periods. Thus, all of the portraits have been recognized by the author as copies of certain preexistent portrayals. What is unique about the selection of the poems is that they were not solely from a certain anthology like Sanjūrokunin Sen (Anthology of Thirtysix Poets), but from a wider range of literary works. With regard to the paintings, the style certainly pertains to the tradition of nise-e portraiture, transmitted by Nobuzane, Tametsugu, Korenobu, and onto Tamenobu. Therefore the handscroll painting in question is a valuable piece which testifies to the relationship between the nise-e tradition and the paintings of the celebrated poets. Comparisons with other nise-e paintings leads the author to presume that the Narikane version was executed around the Bun'ei Era (1264-75) and Kenji Era (1275–78) of the Kamakura Period, when Korenobu is considered to have been active.