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Autumn Maples with Poem Slips

Papers with Japanese text hang from a tree bearing red and gold leaves.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Papers with Japanese text hang from a tree bearing red and gold leaves.

Date:

c. 1675

Artist:

Tosa Mitsuoki
Japanese, 1617-1691

About this artwork

Japanese aristocrats engaged in the elegant custom of recollecting classical poetry while viewing spring and autumn foliage. In these delicate screens, premier court painter Tosa Mitsuoki meditated on the inevitable passage of beauty by depicting the melancholy hours after the departure of reveling courtiers. A cherry tree bursts into bloom on the right screen (seen here at top), while its mate displays the brilliant red and gold foliage of maples in autumn. Slips of poetry, called tanzaku, waft from the blossoming limbs, the lingering signs of a human presence. Courtiers (whose names are recorded in a seventeenth-century document) assisted Mitsuoki by inscribing the narrow strips with quotations of appropriate seasonal poetry from twelfth- and thirteenth-century anthologies. The screens were either commissioned by or given to Tofukumon’in (1607–1678), a daughter of the Tokugawa shogun who married the emperor Gomizunoo (1596–1680). In an era otherwise marked by increasing control of the feudal shogunate over imperial prerogatives, this royal couple encouraged a renaissance of courtly taste that nostalgically evoked the past glories of early medieval aristocratic life.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of Asia

Artist

Tosa Mitsuoki

Title

Autumn Maples with Poem Slips

Place

Japan (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1670–1680

Medium

Six-panel screen (one of pair); Ink, colors, gold leaf, and gold powder on silk

Dimensions

144 × 286 cm (56 3/4 × 112 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

Reference Number

1977.157

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/127644/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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