Minneapolis Institute of Art

How Amazing

Calligrapher: Sakai Hōitsu

Date

late 18th–early 19th century

Medium

Ink on mica paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Sakai Hōitsu is celebrated today as a painter of colorful screens and scrolls, but he was also a haiku poet and calligrapher. On the highly decorated surface of a folding fan Hōitsu wrote a poem about the sound of cicadas in the evening. The continuous movement of his writing is visible in the more strongly brushed Chinese characters as well as the Japanese kana syllables (characters used as phonological units and without individual meaning). すさまじき / 蝉の羽おとや / かけ行灯 How amazing, / The sound of cicada wings— / Hanging lamp (Trans. Stephen Addiss) Asia

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