Purple Displaces Crimson: The Wakan Dialectic as Polemic
The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters
Citation McCormick, Melissa. 2017. Purple Displaces Crimson: The Wakan Dialectic as Polemic. In Around Chigusa: Tea and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan, edited by Dora C.Y. Ching, Louise Allison Cort, Andrew M. Watsky, 181-120. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Published Version https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11121.html
Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:41288107
Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, WARNING: This file should NOT have been available for downloading from Harvard University’s DASH repository. Purple Displaces Crimson: The Wakan Dialectic as Polemic
The cultural phenomenon known as wakan, the creative juxtaposition of Japanese (wa)and Chinese (kan) elements, can be difficult to articulate given the ambiguity involved in defining the boundaries of what makes something Chinese or Japanese, especially over time, or according to the unique perspectives of any given individual. Even at the seemingly irreducible level oflanguage, the apposition oflogographs expressing Chinese poems (kanshi), for example, and syllabic kana script expressing Japanese waka poems are not without nuances that render them fluid, interdependent, and aesthetically unified. Consider a 1682rendition of the Wakan roeishu (FIG.1), the famous eleventh-century anthology of Chinese and Japanese poetry, in which four columns of darkly inked logo graphs render fragments of Chinese poems nearly twice the size of the attenuated columns of kana to the left.' While the powerful Chinese graphs brushed in an assertive running script may at first seem clearly distinct and visually dominant, a closer look reveals an underlying merging of wa and kan in the work through, among other things, the paper decoration. Images of Chinese-style dragons contained within horizontal lines studded with golden dots roil across the upper register of the paper, breathing life into the design suggestive of a variety of associations, from Chinese emperors to serpentine kings beneath the sea. On the other hand, forms reminis cent ofblue clouds, invoking Japanese methods of paper manufacture, encroach toward the center, spilling over and neutralizing the visual force of the dragons, whose golden hue harmonizes with golden hills below. Beneath the calligraphy gold designs ofJapanese bush clover create a local setting for this synesthetic theater of poetic performance. The
Research related to this article acknowledge with gratitude. annot.,Japanese and Chinese was carried out in the spring of , Wakan roeishil is trans Poems to Sing: The Wakan 2013 with the support of a Japan lated in J. Thomas Rimer and Roei Shu (New York: Columbia Foundation Fellowship, which I Jonathan Chaves, trans. and University Press, 1997).
\ calligraphic columns of Japanese poems, moreover , bristle with tensile FIGURE I Watanabe Sohei (dates strength and take root in the clover flowers, securely planting themselves unkno wn), Calligraphy of and making the brushstrokes of the Chinese text seem as if resting onl y the Anthology ofjapanese and Chinese Poems (Waka n lightly on the paper's surface, despite their bluster. The power dynamic roeisha), 1682.Han dscroll; between scripts associated with Chinese and Japanese changes before ink and gold on dyed the eyes of readers progressing through the scro ll, with perspectives paper, h. 24.2cm. Harvard Un iversity Art Museums shifting according to sub tle infl ections of the brush and the placement of (1984.556). graphemes against a perpetually fluctuating ground design. These graphic <( representations of Chinese and Japanese poems thus engage in a dialectic z I relationship that accommodates thinking beyond the binary, allowing wa u and kan to be perceived as distinct and yet simultaneously interd ependent z <( 2 Cl. in their unendin g engagement. <( l Transcen ding the dualistic nature of wa and kan and achieving a new <( VI aesthetic synergy was in fact the long sought- after goal prescribed in much :J lJ premodern poetic and aesth etic theor y. It required among other things I u the great skill of knowing how to calibrate the degree of wa and kan in abnegation or tr anscend ence .5 In this way wakan can be viewed as a form 0 z :J any given act of cultural production. In the context of medieval tea prac of self-expressi on, the resulting manifestations of which need historical 0 ~ tice Murata Shuko (1423- 1502) famously said as much when he advised contextuali zation to be interpreted with precision. <( his disciple to use the utmost rigor and discernment when attempting By the mid- sixteenth centur y, the most articulate th eor eticians of to "blur the boundary between Japan ese and Chinese elements" (wakan wakan had lon g passed , but the in fras tructure for put ting wakan virtu osity 6 no sakai o maBirakasu koto).3 Such statements can elude critica l exam on displa y continued to evolve and came to cent er on th e tearoom. The ;::: m ination, and indeed Shuko's meaning has been much debated, because site emerged organica lly from tea's relatio nship to Zen monastic cultur e r- VI VI whi le transcendence may have been the goal, individual examples were and the culture of Chinese poetr y and prose called Five Mo untains liter )> ;::: rarely value-neutral in practice. Waka n cult ural practices , whether it was ature (Bazan bunBaku), which converged with the intere sts of shoguns , n n 0 bestowing the name Chigusa , resonant with classical Japanese poetic daimyo , and merch ants eng aged in trad e with M ing China . Less clear in ;o ;::: imag ery, on a Chinese pot ,4 juxtaposing Chinese and Japanese objects the developm ent of wakan expr ession in Japan ese cultur al histor y, however, n ;;s and art ifacts for interior display, or composing in the countless sessions is the wa side of th ings , beyond the usual descrip tions ofhow Japan ese ,, oflinked verse (wakan renku) that took place throughout the medieval tea wares were placed side by side with those of Chine se and Kor ean C ,,;o r period, all involved specific historically con tingent moti vations and manufacture. Crucial to a fuller under standing of the dynamics of wakan m value jud gments. The apposition of wa and kan was almost always self in this period is an examination of waka poetic practi ce and one more ~ V,,, consciously deployed for its rhetorical pot ential; its use became a kind of piece of the pu zzle: the role of the cour t and nobilit y in shap in g notion s of r )> n alternativ e language for articulating a range of ideas, not least of which what constitu ted wa and kan in the sixteenth centur y. To exclude th e cour t m V, n concerned notions of distinctions between self and other, as well as their and members of the arist ocrac y from serious con sider ation, as ha s been ;o ;::: V, ed. Kawazoe Fusae and Shot ets u (1381-1459), and 0 5 Shimao Arata utilizes a z 2 Thomas LaMarre, Un J:-3L::fvcl50""~*t!?.'' is Tanko Shinsha, 1960),3:3-4. series of diagrams to explain Minagawa Masa ki (Tokyo: Sh inke i (1406-1475),amon g covering Heian Japan: An in Murata's famous letter to 4 Andrew M. Watsky, t he ever-chan ging relat ion Bensei Shuppan , 20 11), 21-34; others, are disc ussed in David Archaeolog y of Sensation his disc iple Furuich i Chain "C higusa's Names," in Chigusa ship betw een what const itute s an d Shimao Arata, "Wakan Pollack 's wide -ra nging book and Inscript ion (Durham, (1459-1508), which appe ars and the Art of Tea, ed. Louise Japan ese and Ch inese cultural no sakai o mag irakasu" cha on the top ic, The Fracture of NC: Duk e Univers ity Press , as "S huko Furuichi Harima Alliso n Cort and Andrew M. e lements and pos its categ o noyu no rinen to Nihon bunka Mean ing: Japan's Synthes is of 2000), include s a ric h disc us hos hi ate no issh i" in Mur ata Watsky (Was hington, DC: rizing Chinese objects (kara (Tokyo: Tankosha , 2013). China f rom th e Eighth through sion of cal ligrap hy and pape r Shu ko, Shuko Furuichi Freer Galle ry of Art and mono) in the med ieval period 6 The most im po rtant wakan the Eighteenth Centur ies deco rat ion in th e context of Harima hoshi ate no issh i, Arthur M. Sack ler Galle ry, as a form of Japa nese art; related pr imary texts, those (Princeton: Princeton wakan and Heian culture. an not . Naga shima Fukutar6 , Sm ithsonia n Instit ution, 2014), see Shim ao Arata, " Niho n by Nijo Yoshimoto (1320- Un ivers ity Press, 1986). 3 T he phras e "tD~O);!f.:J'l,' in Chado koten ze nshil, ed. 131-39. bijutsu tos hit e no 'karam ono,"' 1388),Gido Shosh in (1325- ~;!: z"StJ'9:fi, .llf~ lff~, Se n Sosh itsu Tfis~ (Kyoto: in Karamon o to Higashi ajia, 1388),Zeami (ca. 1363-1443), \ the scholarly tendency, is to remove from scrutiny import ant material concerning a larger sphere of activity in which apposing wa and kan was fundamental. Cultural practices in the sixteenth century that conceptu alized wa and kan, including those by members of the court and nobility , were foundational for contriving later notions of"Japanesene ss," and as such formed part of a substratum upon which the academic movement of "nationa l study" (kokugaku) and Nativism would emerge in the Edo period . Even the most thorough studies of sixteenth-century cultural histo ry
<( would have to maintain , however , that the courtier class had very little to z I- do with tea gath erings and the wakan that took place there , at least before u the famous chakai ofToyotomi Hideyoshi (1537- 1598) at the imperial z <( court in 1585.7 References to aristocrats engaged in the tea world are 0.. <( currently few and far between , but by 1560 at least one courti er, a former
<( V) Regent and head of the Fujiwara house Kuja Tanemichi (1507-1594), :J •• -IJ proved to be an exception to the rule. With a relative wealth of historical I u documentation related to Tanemichi at our disposal, and with his forays 0 z into the epicenter of Chinese and Japanese aesthetic mixing in late medi :J 0 a: eval Japan, he provides the perfect case study for understanding exactly <( how wakan could be utili zed by member s of the court, or anyone for that
FIGURE2 matter, as a means of self-fashioning. As we shall see, he join ed men at the Tosa Mitsumoto (1530- 1569), center of th e tea world in Sakai and assimil ated the lessons of the tearoom, Murasaki 5hikibu at s: m lshiyamadera , 1560. Hang ing taking care to blur boundaries between Chinese and Japanese elements r Vl scrol l; ink and co lors o n Vl in or der to synthesize them for his own agenda . That agend a, althoug h )> paper, 85.4 x 48.2 cm . motivated by per sonal aspiration s, had high stakes: Tanemichi harbored s: Archives and Mausolea n" Department (Shoryobu) 0 a strong sense of his identity among along line of Fujiwara patriarchs ;o of the Imperi al Household whose rightful place in the order of a cosmically mandated , imperially s: Agency, Tokyo. n centered society he consid ered self-evident . When Tanemichi invoked wa, ;,; Inscription by Sanjonishi .,, the implications were substantial. C Kin'eda (1487-1563). ;o.,, My startin g point is a recently discovered hanging scroll, commis r m sione d by Tanemichi in 1560, of Murasaki Shikibu composing The Tale of '::' Vl.,, Genji (FIG. 2), a painting that at first glance seems to be an unlikel y example r )> 8 n of wakan thought. Indeed , executed by a hereditary court artist, it seems m Vl n ;o 7 Hid eyos hi held success ive chOshin to suru jiki ni okeru in Nikki kokiroku no sekai, ed. s: V, tea gat herings at the imperial kuge no chas hit su," Nihon Kur amoto l(azuhiro (Kyoto: 0 court in 1585 and 1586 t hat ap kenchiku gakka i kinki shibu Shib un kaku Shuppan, 20 15), z pare ntly us hered in an era of kenkya hokokusha 44 (2004): 49-76 . interest in chanoyu by cou rt 961-64. Refere nces to tea 8 For research o n this pa int iers. Neverthe less, examples gatherings in courtiers' diar ies ing, its inscription, meaning, -~L, _; of tea gat her ings held and tea also remain an untapped re comb inatory natu re, and im ~ \ rooms (chashitsu) constructed source for understanding their portance for Genji reception, by members of the nob ility part icipat ion in chanoyu, but see McCorm ick, "'Murasak i and ar istocratic fami lies ap- have re ce ntly been stud ied Sh ikibu lshiyama mode zu 1 pear at least ten yea rs befor <\ by Matsuzono Hitoshi; see fuku' ni okeru sho mondai-wa Hideyoshi's eve nt s; see Hyoga his "C hakaiki no se irit su: Nikki, to kan no sa kai ni aru Murasak i Susumu, "Tensho nenka n o kokirokugak u no sh iten kara," Shikibu zo," Kokka 1434 (2015): to fall squarely and safely in the category of wa.9 The composition depicts poetic production on a grand scale, in the form of a multifaceted poetry the genesis of the most celebrated example of courtly fiction of the Heian offering ceremony. An account of the entire event, including a statement of period, an era that members of the nobility ofTanemichi's epoch longed Tanemichi's intent, survives in a text he authored entitled The Tale of Genji for with an acute sense ofloss given the impoverishment of their late medi Banquet Record (Genji mono[Jatarikyoen ki). 10 Tanemichi commissioned eval situation. Although in the sixteenth century The Tale of Genji was read a set of new poems, one for each chapter title of The Tale of Genji, by the and studied by a wide range of individuals - regional military daimyo, most prominent men of the day."The premise of such a poetic offering was Buddhist monks, renBa masters, performing artists, and women of the the belief in the sacred nature of the Japanese poetic form (uta), which was court, military, and convent, among others - it tends to be primarily asso virtually on par with the Buddhist dharani. At the same time, thirty sepa ciated with the imperial court. This is not surprising given the tale's 795 rate waka were composed and offered to Avalokitesvara as an expression waka poems and hundreds of pages of prose revolving around the lineages of belief in the dharma (Kannan horaku), as were one hundred lines of of the Heian aristocracy. Moreover, the focal point of this painting is the linked verse by twelve different poets. The Kannon to whom Tanemichi figure of Murasaki, who easily represents the "woman's hand" (onnade) offered the verses was none other than Murasaki Shikibu, who was of phonetic kana script and Japanese speech, which was shown in the worshipped at Ishiyamadera as a manifestation of the Nyoirin Kannon, calligraphic example above to stand for wa. But just as wakan calligraphy and her painted image (see FIG. 2) served as the main icon for the occasion. can call attention to the interrelation of seemingly distinct Chinese and Although this event might seem firmly rooted in cultural forms associ Japanese scripts, the "purity" of the wa of this painting can be called into ated with Japanese rather than Sinitic traditions, a close look at Tanemichi's question as well, beginning with the Genji subject matter itself and its GenjiBanquet Record and the inscription on the extant Murasaki painting female author's knowledge and use of Chinese discourse. reveals a strong desire to frame this project in ways that aligned it with Most important, however, this unique presentation of the Genji author particular aspects of continental culture. This begins with the name given 186 provides insight into sixteenth-century notions of the valences of Chinese to the event, and how it is referred to in the body of the preface as a post and Japanese things. It provides a prime example of wakan synthesis in Genji "lecture banquet" ( Genji mono[Jatariko kyoen). Tanemichi invoked terms of style, meaning, and rhetorical posturing, and suggests new possi an ancient practice in which the ritualized recitation and inscription of bilities for expanding the scope of materials and artifacts that represent a poems in literary Chinese (shi) solidified relations between the sovereign structuring of experience through wakan. and his subject. Banquets were part of the Confucian-based ritual calendar of the early Japanese court and occurred, for example, after the completion Tanemichi, Genji, and the Duke of Zhou of readings of the Nihonshoki. Tanemichi's ancestors, men of the northern In 1560, when the fifty-four-year-old Kujo Tanemichi completed his branch of the Fujiwara, also appropriated and transformed banquets for study of all fifty-four chapters of The Tale of Genji, the numerical align the house's own symbolic purposes. An example is the "Wisteria Blossom ment caused him to perceive a profound karmic connection at work. Banquet" staged by Fujiwara no Tokihira (871-909) in 902, where Japanese Accordingly he was moved to mark the occasion in a way most respectful poetry written in kana was employed specifically within a banquet frame to the supernatural forces that seemed to be in effect. He commissioned work for political ends, as Gustav Heldt suggests, "to affirm the orthodox definition of the court as a Confucian entity in which the relations between 3-21. Sugimoto Mayuko dis zO) to 'Genji monogatari identilied the painter as men were the chief focus."12 Tanemichi's sixteenth-century stage was not covered the painting in the kyoenki,"' Shizuoka Bunka "Tosa Sakon Shogen," a title Archives and Mausolea Geijutsu Daigaku kenkyu that Mitsumoto received in Department (Shoryobu) ofthe kiyo 14 (2013): 168-76. Ten bun 10 (1541) at the age Imperial Household Agency, 9 Tosa Mitsumoto was heir of twelve, after which his 10 l Kin'eda thus likens himse lf and his nephew to Yuankai , otherwise < z known as Du Yu (222- 285), and his famous "addiction " to the Zuo I u zhuan , a commentary on the SprinB and Autumn Anna ls (Chunqiu). 20 z < Du Yu compiled his own commentar y on this commentary , and clearly Cl. < Tanemichi and Kin 'eda, both compilers of their own Genji commentaries , < envisioned themselves as participating in an ancient Sino-Japanese 20 See Dav id R. Knechtges Yuankai was a lauded mili the Wen Xuan (Selections of and Ta i ping Chang, eds., tary general and high civil Refined literature), an import Ancient and Early Medieval official. His "mania" forthe ant Chinese anthology that Chinese Literature, vol. 1,A Zuo zhuan led him to write Kin'eda and Tanemichi would Reference Guide, Part One a preface to the commen have known we ll. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 206-7. tary that was included in great significance to Tanemichi , was the longstanding belief in Murasaki FIGURE 4 Detai l of fig. 2. Shikibu as a manifestation of the bodhisattva Kannon (Avalokitesvara) who appeared in the world to reveal through her writing the principle of impermanence and thus lead readers to Buddhist awakening.2 1 In an example close to Tanemichi 's day, the Muromachi-period Noh play Genji kuyo (A Memorial Servicefor Geaji) reveals at its conclusion that Murasaki Shikibu was specifically the incarnation of the Kannon oflshiyama dera.22 The main sculptural icon of lshiyamadera , a secret Buddha rarely < revealed, is enshrined in the temple's main hall and is a two-armed -z I Nyoirin (Sk: cintamai:iicakra) or "wish-fulfilling jewel" manifestation of u Kannon. Tanemichi 's painting might therefore be understood not as a z < 0.. straightforward illustration of the tale's origin story or as an imaginary < portrait-likeness of Murasaki Shikibu , but as a quasi- Buddhist icon < created in the context of professed belief in Murasaki as a numinous being . :::>"' lJ The painter Tosa Mitsumoto fashioned a work that seems to convey I ~L~ J u the aura of a Buddhist deity while communicating the multifaceted ~ \ 0 z :::> persona of the author and her tale. Crucial to this endeavor was creating 0 ct a capacious pictorial infrastructure , which the painting achieves through < its remarkable compositional cohesion (see FIG. 2). The temple building anchors the right half of the painting , situated between an outcropping 193 of blue-gray rocks in the foreground and a mountain ridge in the distance reflection, an illusory companion of the disk above, it is nevertheless the s:: m that extends diagonally across nearly the entire width of the painting. object of Murasaki's gaze and the source of her authorial and spiritual r "'Vl The building is perched atop a white shore , the fingers of which extend revelation . The connection between the reflected moon and the perceiving )> s:: leftward into an expanse of blue water that occupies the bottom left half subject leads to an unimpeded view of the author 's visage (F IG. 4). Other n n 0 of the composition. The soft , shimmering gold mists drifting across the elements assist in directing attention to Murasaki: the square frame ;,, s:: rocks, the water, the building, and through the sky beyond the mountain of the architectural cutaway and the trees that emerge from behind the n ;,; ridge unify the composition. Railings on the building's veranda converge foreground rocks , their sparse branches of green and red leaves bending in -0 C at a golden-capped corner post , which points to a dramatically upturned different directions but ultimately pointing upward to the court lady at her ;,, -0 eave of a large hip-and-gable cypress -bark roof. The sharp curl of the roof writing table. r m end leads the eye upward to a dark moon that hovers against a blue sky, Viewers oflater Murasaki Shikibu images will recognize this familiar ~ "'-0 revealed between patches of golden haze that seem to have just parted. pose. Murasaki sits behind a black-lacquered desk on top of which are r )> n In search of the orb's reflection, the viewer scans down the painting to two partially open scrolls , a lacquer writing box containing a brush, m Vl find its double below. A gray disk floats on the surface of the water , a and an inks tone with traces of ink in its well. A large black box on the n ;,, thin sliver of white delineating a portion of its rounded edge. Clearly a floor contains additional scrolls, which evoke another element of the s:: Lf1 0 legend: that Murasaki used the back of the Great Perfection of Wisdom z 2 21 The late- He ian-period fict ions. The single best source Ge ndering Reade rship, and Sutra (Daihannyakyo) when no other paper was at hand . 3 Rather than lmakagami (New Mirror) fo r the legends of Mu rasak i Leg itim izing The Tale of being depicted with brush at the ready, however , she appears quiet and con t a ins one of the ear liest t hr oug hout history is Ii Haru ki, Genji" (Ph D diss., Co lum bia suggestio ns that M urasak i Genji monogatari no densetsu U nive rsity, 20 10). Shikibu was an inca rnation (Tokyo : ShowaS hu ppa n, 22 Janet Go ff, Noh Orama 23 M ur asak i's use of t he Genji comme nta ry Kakaisho a nd eventua l redemp t io n, he of Kan non and is ex plicitly 1976); for a comp rehens ive and The Tale of Genji: The Art Oaihannyakyo, and the (ca. 1363) . Alt ho ugh Tanem ichi chose to em phasize on ly the posited in the text in an he u treatment into the mode rn of Allusio n in Fifteen Classical subse qu ent penance she knew t his lege nd and its va r bod hisattva identity of the ristic ma nner to counter the per iod, see Satoko Na ito, "T he Plays (Princeto n: Princeto n pa id for t he deed by recopy io us perm utat ions, as wel l as autho r for this project. idea that t he aut hor is suffer Mak ing of Mu rasak i Shiki bu: Unive rsity Press, 199 1), 203-9. ing t he sutra and offeri ng it an atte nda nt d iscourse about ing in hel l fo r co mp os ing her Construct ing Aut hors hip, to the te mpl e, appears in t he Murasak i's descent into hell motionless, captured precisely in a moment of meditative contemplation, or the "mindful clarity" (iCimJiT) described in textual renditions of this scene. 24 I argue that it is the stillness of this pose that enables the picture to act as a double image; it both suggests the moment of auctorial creation and hints at the subject's identity as a manifestation of the bodhisattva Kannon, conveying her transcendent calm and benevolence. To achieve this duality, the painting brings together different genres of painting, recalling, for example, Shubun-style Sino-Japanese ink land scape paintings with their one-cornered emphases, foreground rocks and trees, and distant mountain ranges. The mountains behind Murasaki consist of craggy gray stones defined by Mitsumoto's emulation ofhemp fiber strokes. Between them, however, is a rounded hilltop of malachite green, reminiscent of the soft-edged rolling hilltops associated with yamatoe painting. The blending of wa and kan thus occurs at the motivic level: the rockery invokes the roughhewn volcanic boulders from which the temple oflshiyama takes its name, but sharp, quasi-axe cuts also acknowl edge a debt to Chinese painters known in Japan, such as Xia Gui (active ca. rr95-r230), while merging those forms with ayamatoe-style verdant hill. This double image of Murasaki as Kann on also relies on motifs 194 associated with iconic images of the bodhisattva, specifically those of 195 Attributed to l\loami the "water-moon type." The reflection of the moon, its foreshortened (1397-1471), White-Robed Kannan, I 6th century. quality, and Murasaki's meditative expression equally evoke monochrome Hanging scroll; ink on paper, images of the white-robed Kann on from the Muromachi period (FIG. 5). 2 s 109.9 x 38.2 cm. Private collection. The rocks in the foreground of the painting beneath the temple structure suggest the large craters that often form the seat for the Avalokitesvara as she gazes out from her paradisal rocky island dwelling on Mount Potalaka. It is fitting that Ishiyamadera itself was thought to be a mani festation of Potalaka (J:Fudarakusan) in Japan; the rocky base beneath the temple's main structure evokes the island in the southern seas off the 24 This phrase and the Dai vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 452. The scroll a poetry offering at the temple hannyakyo part of the episode set is fully reproduced in Shiga in 1555in which Tanemichi mentioned above both appear l(enritsu l(indai Bijutsukan, may have participated. The in the text (kotobagaki) of lshiyamadera engi emaki no postscript, by a Tenryoji monk, the Illustrated Legends of zenbo: Jayo bunkazai shi includes the phrase "Murasaki lshiyamadera (lshiyamadera chikan ikkyo daikokai (Shiga Shikibu sunawachi byakue engi emaki), a text well known Ken Otsu Shi: "lshiyamadera daishi nari, byakue dais hi in Tanemichi's circle; the cal Engi no Sekai"TenJikko linkai, sunawachi Murasaki Shikibu ligraphy For the fourth scroll 2012). nari" (~i\JmlWBtic::*:±ili, in the set, in which the legend 25 Murasaki's interchange Btic::*:±JW~il'.@~tti,).See appears, was brushed in Meio ability with the Nyoirin Okuda lsao's introduction to 6 (1497).10.11byTanemichi's Kannan and white-robed the text, "lshiyama tsukimi ki, grandfather and Kin'eda's l <( U'l :::, \J Indian subcontinent, as does its topography of dramatic volcanic rocks gifted to his pupil, the Suruga priest, To Sokei, a Hitomaro icon that I u from which the temple takes its name.2 6 Tanemichi's painting is not the 0 had been painted by Tosa Mitsumochi (Mitsumoto's father) and which z 28 :::, first to depict Murasaki at Ishiyamadera or to identify her as a bodhi bore an imperial inscription. The bestowal of a painting, along with 0 sattva; an earlier example appears in the fourth of the scrolls depicting the a certificate (kiriBami) , affirmed Sokei's initiation into the Sanjonishi "'<( Ishiyamadera enBi emaki (OriBins and LeBends of Ishiyamadera) of 1497, in lineage of the "Way of Poetry," a conferral of paraphernalia evoking the which Murasaki is shown in the temple 's so-called Genji Room, pulling oral-textual transmission ofTendai Buddhist practice .2 9 It is interesting 197 aside bamboo blinds in order to view the moon in the distance (FIG. 6). that after completing the Ko kin denju, Sokei, who resided in the capital for ;::: m Tanemichi 's painting , however, was the first to present Murasaki's image only a year, immediately began studying The Tale of Genji with Sanetaka r 30 "'V, as a vertical hanging-scroll icon, presumably in a deliberate attempt to and Sanjonishi K.in'eda through systematic lectures on each chapter. )> ;::: iconize the image of the author, making the picture worthy of its role as Genji learning was in fact part of the Ko kin denju course of study and n n 0 the focal point for a ceremonial gathering. involved its own certifying memorandaY As an addendum to the Kokin ;o To understand how this painting veered from precedent and how it ;::: denju, Geryi denju did not seem to involve a separate painted icon of affir n blends wa and kan elements in the process of iconization, we need only mation . Tanemichi's Murasaki Shikibu icon, the first of its kind, might ;,; examine the other options available to patron and artist . An entire cate thus be seen as an attempt to establish Genji teachings as a distinct and gory of paintings, specifically likenesses ofKakinomoto no Hitomaro independent transmission with its own accoutrements in the mold of m (FIG. 7), the "patron saint " of waka, could have functioned as a ready Ko kin denju regalia. For Tanemichi specifically, the icon might have served n template for Tanemichi's Genji banquet painting of Murasaki Shikibu. as an informal testament to his claim to Sanjonshi Genji learning, until "'-0 n Hitomaro icons were used not only as the focus of religio-poetic rituals m V\ (FIG. 8), but also to affirm transmission between master and disciple of 28 See the entry for Ten bun 1 "The Disc ipline of Poetry: temporary stays in the capital; n (1532).12.15in Sanetaka ko ki, Authority and Invention in see McCormick, "Genji Goes ,:, the highly guarded "Teachings of Poems Ancient and Modern" (Kokin cited in ibid., 57n24. The pa int the l(okindenju" (PhD diss., West: The 1510 Genji Album ;::: V, denju).27 In Tosa Mitsumoto 's artistic lineage, both his father and grand ing had no mount ing and was Cornell Univers ity, 2000). and the Visualization of Court 0 sent by Sanetaka to Soke i on Tsu neyori appears t hrough and Capital," Art Bulletin 85, father had painted Hitomaro icons for this purpose, with one particularly a handsome tray once owned out Cook's in-depth study; for no. 1(2003): 54-85 . illuminating example occurring in 1532. In that year, Sanjonishi Sanetaka by the Ashikaga shoguns. a description of t he Tsu neyori 31 Sogi conferred upon Sokei was the grandson of To Sogi genes is of t he trad ition, Sanetaka a l <( of Chinese painting methods and a stylistic wa-kan synthesis in Tosa z I painting was not new to Mitsumoto, but it began to stand out significantly u and self-consciously as early as the fifteenth century in the work ofTosa z <( 0.. Mitsunobu , and continued to be transformed by Tosa Mitsumochi in <( the sixteenth century.33 Tanem ichi's Murasaki painting is currently the <( Vl sole surviving work definitively by Tosa Mitsumoto , but it clearly shows :, LJ a synthesis of wa and kan learned from the painter's predecessors. He I u adopted his grandfather Mitsunobu's light palette and near transparency 0 z :, in applying the blue color of the waves , while using the short, animated 0 ct. brushstrokes found in his father's paintings to delineate the rocks and <( trees . And although the figure and architecture resemble , for example, 1 FIGURE? those in M itsunobu's Genji paintings, there are subtle differences, such 99 Unknown artist , as the woman's face , somehow more gaunt and otherworldly, and the s: Kakinomoto 110 Hitomaro, m 16th century. Hanging scroll ; inclusion of a striking demon roof tile, found only in his father's work. r V, ink, color, and gold on V, The gold mists with their diffuse edges were learned from his father, and )> silk, 73.5 x 37-8 cm (image). s: never appear in the work ofMitsunobu, who stuck to gold clouds with n Minneapo lis Institute of n Art, Mary Griggs Burke 0 scalloped edges. And yet Mitsumoto 's approach is almost unique - the ;o Collect ion, Gift of the s: golden mists suggest an ink -wash method to applying gold paint , as if Mary and Jackson Burke n r:. Foundation, 20 15-79.26 . attempting to infuse the most fundamental aspect of ya ma toe painting "C with a Chinese aesthetic. ;o Like the Tosa painters before him, however, Mitsumoto engaged "r m the project as a cocreator. He brought his painterly skills and inherited ~ V, knowledge to bear on the project , but first and foremost conformed to "r )> n m Vl 32 Tanemichi's first disciple no emaki," Kokubun Mejiro 49 Muromachijidai, Suibokuga n in the Genji teachings seems (2010): 92-101. to yamatoe, Ni hon bijutsu ;o to have been the wife of the 33 Aizawa Masah iko has ex zensho 9 (Tokyo : Shogakkan, s: V, eleventh abbot of Honganji , plored Tosa Mitsumochi's 2014) . Tanikawa Yuki has pos 0 Kennyo, known by her post wakan synthes is and the re la ited the political implications z tonsure name, Gyokoin Nyo t ionship between the Tosaand of employing ink painting tech shun'ni. As Sugimoto Mayuko Kano sc hools in t he sixteenth niques in yamatoe pa int ings has d iscussed, Genji denju century in several publicat ions, for artists and patrons in the related memoranda survive includ ing "Muromachi yama sphere of the Ashikaga sho among the Kuja family archives toeshi no keifu," in Suibokuga guns; see Tanikawa Yuki, "Tosa and, as we shall see, reference to chasei emaki, Ni hon Mits unobu to suibokuga," the Murasak i Sh ikibu icon; bijutsu zensh0 12(Tokyo : in E ga monogataru Nihon, see Sugimoto Mayuko, "Kuja Kodansha, 1992), and "Juroku ed.KokubungakuKenkyo Yukiie to Genj i monogatari seiki fukko gadan no kishu Shiryokan (Tokyo: Miya i Genj i kirigami to maboroshi Motonobu to Mitsumoch i," in Shoten, 2014), 89-104- FIGLIRE8 description of the work , but he also provides a sketch (FIG . 10) , making sure Fujiwara no Takaaki (active ca. mid-13th c.), Illustrated to correct his own drawing in order to place the left-of-center moon in Biography of Priest Kakunyo the precise position . Despite depicting seemingly disparate topics, when (Boki ekotoba), fifth in a the Murasaki painting and the Yujian landscape are placed side-by-side, set of ten scrolls, dated 1351. Handscroll; ink and colors on compositional and other conceptual similarities between them start to paper, detail, h. 32 x 839.9 cm. emerge. One even begins to wonder if perhaps Tanemichi took inspiration Nishi Honganji Collection , Kyoto. Important Cultural from the famous Chinese painting in conceptuali zing the moonlit land Property. scape at Ishiyamadera. The Yujian painting had a lofty pedigree - it had once been in the - I storied collection of the Ashikaga shoguns, a fact that would have been l reiterated at each airing of the work. Meanwhile, its central autumn moon imagery, executed in the evocative haboku (broken ink) style , conjured the < confluence of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers in south ern China and all the < V, the patron 's vision for the work and to his view of the world. That world poetic associations the topographical site possessed. Those associations :::J l) view is uniquely accessible through the relatively numerous texts that included unjust exile , a theme that was central to the Genji (its Suma and I u Tanemichi left behind. In the same way that Tanemic hi invoked the Duke 0 Akas hi chapters in particular form part of the genesis legend) and resulted z :::J of Zhou in his Genji Banquet Record , the painting also cites motifs from in part in Tanemichi 's personal attraction to the tale , given his own histor y 0 o! Chinese ink land scapes in a more deliberate way than we have seen so far, of exile. The chances that the courtier Kujo Tanemichi saw such a painting, < tapping into shared vis ual semantics among familiar works by Chinese given the limited extent to which the nobil ity participated in the world of 200 masters circulating in the tearooms of Sakai. tea, seem slim. 201 One of the only references to courtiers in the Tennojiya tea diaries Murasaki at Lake Dongting and the Eight Views of Omi involves Tanemichi. He attended at least one tea gathering in Sakai, as a Described in the most basic terms , the compositional elements of the guest ofTennojiy a Sotatsu , for an event on the twenty-second day of the Murasaki Shikibu painting consist of the following: a perfect autumn twelfth month ofEiroku 2 (1559),placing him in Sakai almost exactly 6 0 moon floating left of center; an architectural struct ure midway up the one year before the Murasaki painting was completed-3 Tanemichi ;:, paper with a spit ofland beneath ; a grove of trees with clouds wafting attended the event along with a fellow courtier , Lord Koga-37 Among the through ; and hazy mountains above clouded in mist. These words objects on display was a painting hung in the alcove, a hanging scroll describing the Shikibu painting are in fact verbatim from a sixteenth depicting the legendary Tang-dynasty Chan monk Decheng, known century observer who used them to describe not Tanemichi's painting as "Boatma n Decheng" (Chuanzi Decheng, J:Sensu Tokujo) , brushed but a work be called "Moon Picture" (tsukie), which refers to Autumn by the thirteenth-century Chinese monk-painter , Muqi (J: Mokkei).38 Moon over Lake Don&tinB by the Chinese artist Yujian (active mid-13th c.) Thus Tanemichi had clearly seen a work by Muqi, but had he seen Yujian's (FIG. 9) from what was originally a horizontal handscroll depicting the m' Ei&ht Views of the Hsiao and HsianB Rivers-34The observer was Tennojiya 36 Ibid., 8:73- making them difficult to (820-858), was by Muqi and 37 The annotations in ibid . distinguish. Koga Michikata was owned by Sotatsu 's son, (Tsuda) Sogyu (d. 1591),and he recorded th at visual inventory in his state that the "Lord Koga" was, however, among the po Sogyo, who must have in meticulous "Recor d of Tea Objects Seen " (Do3u haikenki) , in an entry (koga dona sama) who ets represented in Tanemichi's herited the work. The paint accompan ied Tanemichi is Genji banquet poems one ing no longer survives, but at dated to the second month ofEiroku 10 (1567).35He not only gives a verbal Koga Harumichi (1519-1575). year later, making it more that time it was the left paint I believe a more likely can likely that both references ing ofa triptych that had Hotei didate is l(oga Michikata refer to him. in the center and a fisherman 34 The eight paintings in surrounding the display of in Nagashima Fukutar6, (1541-1575), whom the same 38 Yamanoue no 5oji ki (The on the right. See l(umakura Yujian's horizonta l scrol l, eac h Chinese objects in the Muro an not., Tennojiya kaiki, in editors identify as "Lord Record ofYamanoue no Soji), lsao, an not., Yamanoue no Soji depicting a separate "view" mach i period seems to have Chado koten zenshu (Kyoto: l(oga" in an entry five days Tensh6 16 (1588), makes clear ki tsuketari Chawa shigetsu with an accompanying poem, driven the dissection of such Tanko Shinsha, 1959), 7'210-12. earlier. Both Harumichi that the painting of the famous shu. (Tokyo: lwanami Shoten, were cut up and remounted Chinese handscrolls. The painting was owned by and Michikata were referred untrammeled Chan eccen- 2006), 60. I am grateful to as individual hanging scrolls. 35 The entry from the "Record Tenn6jiya (Tsuda) Doshitsu. to atthis time by the tit le tric the "Boatman," or "Boat Andrew Watsky for pointing The architecture and activit ies of Tea Objects Seen" appears "former Gondainagon.'' Monk" Chuanzi Decheng out this reference. Autumn Moon over Lake Don3tin3 , a work that could have insp ired his FIGURE 9 Yujian (active mid-13th c.), unique image of Murasaki in moonl ight? Autumn Moon over Dongting Yujian 's painting was, in fact, being displayed around this same Lake, from "Eig ht Views of the Xiao and Xiang," time ; its owner , D oshitsu , was so proud of it that he reputedly unrolled Southern Song dynasty, it ofte n and with no rega rd to season. Koga Michikata had been show n 13th century. Handscroll mounted as a hanging scro ll; the wo rk just five days before he accompanied Tanemichi to Sotatsu 's tea Ishiyamadera. Yujian's poem reads: at Ishiyamadera, while moonlit Lake Dongting has become Lake Biwa. ;;:: m Murasaki thus takes the place of the Chinese occupant of the Yueyang r Ln Ln 17.9rnFJir/iJJJ=Jrra\l~, Tower listening to the long flute. She sits in the pavilion and gazes at the )> ;;:: - _9:EIF,~~ ~ir:rw mirrorlike surface of the lake illuminated by the autumn moon. She n n 0 &r1~t1-1i~ff rn, imagines her protagonist Genji gazing up at the same moon during his ;o ;;:: mgI~ wi fi ~ it exile in Suma , and writes the Suma and Akashi chapters , those most n ;,; inflected by a kan sensibility , in a setting that cites the visual language .,, of the most celebrated Ch inese paintings of the day. C In all directions the lake is flat, and the moon illuminates ;o the mountains IfTanemichi conceptualized the Murasaki at Ishiyamadera painting r m" A single snail-shell curl, the center of the mirror visible as an analogue to Autumn Moon over Lake Don3tin3 , it might even have ~ "' From high above in the Yueyang Pavilion , hearing the sound been instrumental in the formation of the "Eight Views of Omi," one of the r )>" n of the long flute most enduring themes in Japanese art and literature . By the late fifteenth m Ln Lamenting the difficulty of the journey on that rugged century , Gozan monks and poets had drawn parallels between the sites n ;o mountain road of the "Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang" and spots along the shores of ;;:: Ln 0 Lake Biwa, but the poetic sites of the standard "Eight Views of Omi" were z This is a highly allusive poem that suggests a range of meanings based on not yet codified in Tanemichi's day. In fact the origins of the theme remain specific Chinese poems from the past, and yet it is capacious enough to shrouded in mystery. Osen Keisan (1429-1493) ofShokokuji , one of several 39 Nagash ima Fukutar6, ofTanemichi's grandfather Sanetaka's hand was worthy 41 Alfreda Murck points out argues for the politica l impl i The Subtle Art of Dissent Tennojiya kaiki, J:74, entry Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455- of contemp lat ion in the tea many of them, such as the cations of Xiao Xiang poems, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard for Eiroku 2 (1559).12.17- 1537),referred to as "Nishi alcove speaks volumes about "snail she ll curl,"which she many of which could have res Univers ity Asia Center for the 40 The tea master Mozuya Dono" (-1* i!§Jil9:tk,1l7'); the stature of this particu lar translates as "a spiral head onated in the Japanese con Harvard -Yenching Inst itute, Doan hung in the tokonoma ibid., 7'57-58, entry for l(oji 4 family in the tea world. dress" (an informal name text as we ll. See Murck, Poetry 2000), 256-57- alcove a letter in t he hand (1558).2.29. That a letter in for Sakyamun i Buddha), and and Painting in Song China . monks whose inscriptions on ink landscape paintings loom large in schol Tennojiya (Tsuda) Sogyo arship on Muromachi Sino-Japanese painting, is viewed as pivotal to the (d. 1591),"Record of Tea early process of associating the scenery around Lake Biwa with that of Utensils Seen" (Dogu hailzen k.i), second month Xiao and Xiang poetry in a general sense.4 2 In 1501 Tanemichi's grandfather of Eiroku 10 (1567), detail. Sanetaka had used Chinese poems on the "Eight Views of the Xiao and Thread-bound book; ink on Xiang" composed by the Rinzai Zen monk Ten'in Ryutaku (1422-1500) paper. Private collection. as the basis for his own waka poems on the theme that he then brushed on poem sheets (shikishi) to be pasted on a folding screen with paintings of the same theme. 43Sanetaka's poems, however, are strictly waka interpre tations of the Chinese poems and make no mention of the Omi sites. In fact, the standard belief is that it would take another one hundred years for the pairing of"Eight Views" topics and Lake Biwa sites to become fixed, as the brainchild of Konoe Nobutada (1565-1614). 44 Nobutada's poems on the topic are the earliest extant examples of the standard ones in use throughout the Edo period and today, and they are often credited as being the originating ones. Nobutada's Ishiyamadera poem reads as follows: url!~:VJO=J url!~tc(;IOJjfuT 0J=liJ'f:fll: 204 JsiJ,L >t;Jl:/%'t>tii iJ,tJ:G liJ.ii~ 205 Autumn Moon at Ishiyamadera Ishiyama, shimmering on the surface of Lake Biwa, 45 the moon's shadow in Akashi and Suma must have been one and the same. above Akashi and Suma. It is her mind, engaged in "calming and contem N obutada's poem would have fit perfectly above Mitsumoto's image of plation" (kokoro o sumasu),that understands how time and space should be Murasaki at Ishiyamadera; she is the absent presence in his verse. She is collapsed, as her viewing of the moon becomes one with that of her char the first perceiving subject to envision the same moon above Lake Biwa as acter in exile. Medieval Genji commentaries situated Murasaki's moment of inspiration within the framework of Buddhist meditation, and posited 42 Judith Stubbs provides a l(inenbutsu Chosakai (Shiga Shinheishcz)Saish6) vol. 66 of that she had achieved the ultimate perception of non-duality, the "threefold wealth of information on the l(en: Shiga l(en Shiseki lvleisho Wa/za bu11gah1 taikei (Tokyo: contemplation in one thought" (isshinsang an) as found in Zhiyi's Great theme and makes the insight Tennen l(inenbutsu Chosalcai, Shain, 2005), 135-37. ful point that though Osen's 1937),7. thanks to Edward sources suggest Calming and Contemplation (C: Mohe zhiguan, J:Maka shikan).46 As a long name has been associated !(amens me this Views ofOmi standing visual metaphor for non-duality, the moon in the Ishiyamadera with the Eight Views theme, article and for his discussion of Konoe f\/lasaie he should be seen as of the topic In of (1472-1544), inspired during a genesis myth allows for a metaphysical pivot rooted in Tendai Buddhist sentative oFa number Omi," a paper he at visit there i11 1500; no record well-recorded individuals who Yale University in March 2015. of Hisamitsu traveling to Omi 46 Murasaki Shikibu's place in tenets of the threefold con imagery, and Tendai Buddhist were seminal in the forma I have yet to locate the origi on the date has come to light 1 tion of the topos. See Judith nal source for the Osen poem, nor has any contemporary the Tendai lineage is noted in templations is in Jacqueline I. thought is the subject of my Stubbs, "Omi l-lakkei" (PhD which Shibata does not cite. source linked Hisamitsu to Genjicommentaries from as Stone, Original Enlightenment forthcoming article "Murasaki diss., of Chicago, 43 This was at the request of the theme. See Stubbs, "Omi early as the Genchii saihisho and the Transformation of and Metaphysics: The Think 1993), Sl For poems, the re11ga poet Sogi, as re Hakkei," 62-72. (ca. 1265), in Ikeda l(ikan, Medieval Japanese Buddhism ing Female Author as Buddhist see Shibata !Vli11oru,i/Omi corded in Sanetaka's poetry 45 Nio-no-umi ("Sea of ed., Genji monogatari taisei (Honolulu: University of Icon," based on public lectures l-lakkei," in Shiga /(en Meisho collection along with all is an alternative (Tokyo: Choo l 208 52 Sugimoto Mayuko, "l TEA AND THE ARTS OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY JAPAN Edited by Dora C. Y. Ching Louise Allison Cort Andrew M. Watsky P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Ce nter for East Asian Art Department of Art and Archaeology , Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press Publish ed by P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art ~ D epartment of Art and Archaeo logy Princeton University Prin ceto n, New Jersey 08544-1018 pri nceton. ed u/rang in assoc iati on with Princeton Univers ity Press Distributed by Prin ceto n Universit y Press 41 William Street Prin ceton , New Jersey 08540 -5237 pr ess.pr inceto n.edu Copyright © 2017 by th e Tru stees of Prin ceto n University In the Nation' s Se rvice and the Service of Hum anity All Rights Reserved Library of Co ngress Co ntrol Number : 2017931294 ISBN : 978-0-691-17755-7 Briti sh Libr ary Cataloguing-in-Pub licati on Data is availab le This publicatio n is made possible in part by a grant from the Barr Ferr ee Found ation Fund, Department of Art and Archaeology , Princeton University and by a generous gift from Peggy and Ri chard M. Danzig er Cover dra wing: Plan of a typical four-and- a-half- tatami tearoo m , delin eated by Binocu lar Managing Ed itor : D ora C. Y. C hin g Copyeditor : Ma ry Gladue Bibliograph y Editor: Jean Wagn er Pro ofrea der : Rachel Schne ewi nd Tnd exer: Susan Stone Boo k design , compo sition, and producti on: Binoc ular, New York Sepa rat ion s, print ing, and bindin g: Nissha Printin g Communication s, Inc., Kyoto Typefac es: Haarlemm er and H aar lemm er Sans Pap ers : u 7.o gsm OK Bright Rough, rn4.7 gsm OK Float PRI NTE D I N J APAN rn987654321 TEA MATERIALITY Foreword 135 Reformatting the Context of a Rikyu Letter ANDREW HARE 157 Chigusa's Mouth Cover and the Maeda Clan MELISSA M . RINNE JAPAN I CHINA Collaboration , the nurturing of research projects, and the sharing of scholarship have been a hallmark of the Tang Center. Since its founding 181 Purple Displaces Crimson: The Wakan Dialectic as Polemic in 2001 , the Tang Center has published thirteen books, which together MELISSA MCCORMICK represent the contributions of more than one hundred scholars 011 critical issues in the field of East Asian art and culture. Each of those projects originated and came to fruition at the Tang Center. Around ChiBusa: Tea CONCURRENCES: TEA IN CHINA and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan is a different sort of collaboration, one that continues and contribute s to an existing project centered on 211 The Art of Tea and the Aesthetic Ideals of the Ming Literati the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Chinese storage jar that traveled STEVEN D . OWYOUNG to Japan and became known as Chigusa in the sixteenth century. When Chigusa was acquired by the Freer Gallery of Art in 2009, it arrived with 7 a host of accoutrements and documents that had accompanied the storage 233 Bibliography jar over the centuries. Residing now in the United States, Chigusa has 259 Index continued to inspire scholarship, museum exhibitions , and events . 283 Image Credits Chigusa was first exhibited at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in early 2014 . Later that year it became the focus of an exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Tang Center convened the symposium "Chigusa in Context: In and Around Chanoyu in Sixteenth-Century Japan " in conjunction with that exhi bition. At the core of all of these activities is chanoyu, the paradigmatic cultural practice in Japan that centered around a host's preparation and guests' consumption of tea and, as well, on the appreciation of its requisite objects - including, we emphasize, Chigusa. This volume is the outgrowth of the Princeton symposium and exem plifies the latest installment of how Chigusa continues to captivate the interest of scholars. The Tang Center is privileged to join the ranks of centuries of institutions , tea practitioners, and scholars who have not only entered the world of Chigusa but also have helped create it. Andrew M . Watsky, Director Dora C. Y. Ching, Associate Director P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art Princeton University