Minneapolis Institute of Art

Poem from the Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times (Kokin wakashū)

Calligrapher: Hon'ami Kōetsu; Underpainting by Tawaraya Sōtatsu

Date

early 1610s

Medium

Ink and gold on silver-decorated paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

In addition to Chinese characters, the Japanese writing system uses two forms of syllabaries (characters that represent a syllable): hiragana and katakana. The two written syllabaries developed from Chinese characters used to phonetically represent Japanese. Prior to the 1100s, each script style was associated with certain types of writing; for example, Chinese writing was used for scholarly texts, with annotations in katakana; novels and Japanese poetry employed hiragana and Chinese characters. This poem is written with a mix of kanji (Chinese characters) and variants of hiragana called hentaigana. The larger, thicker characters—mostly kanji—provide visual accents to the poem. Taken from the Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times (Kokin wakashū), the poem reads: “The autumn moon shines brilliantly / upon the mountains / illuminating every / fallen colored leaf.” Asia

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