Minneapolis Institute of Art

Facing the Moon

Calligrapher: Hayashi Razan

Date

first half 17th century

Medium

Hanging scroll, ink on paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Hayashi, a Neo-Confucian teacher and scholar, brushed this composition at a poetry gathering in which participants were assigned a single character on which to base their poem. In this case, Hayashi had the character kyo (emptiness, the same character featured in the work by Suda Kokuta nearby), which appears as the final word of the poem in the lower left corner. Hayashi wrote his characters in clear standard script, attaining a regularity of size and spacing that contrasts with the more condensed and irregular composition of the characters on the right. 一片晚秋月 四邊殘菊居 時調渾不似 聲裡塵心虛 賦對月彈渾不似 詩 分韻得虛 道春 聲裡塵心虛 Composed Facing the Moon and Playing a Different Tune Assigned Xu (emptiness) in the poem rhyme assignment Dōshun One sliver of autumn evening moon, The house surrounded by withered chrysanthemums— Simply unlike the popular melodies of today, An inner voice empties my heart of dust. Japan, Asia

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