Autumn Maples with Poem Slips
c. 1675
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.)
Classification
screen
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
127644
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In the seventeenth century Japanese aristocrats often composed and recited classical poetry while viewing foliage at appointed times of the year. During festivities, poems would be carefully written on patterned slips of paper (tanzaku) and tied to the branches of trees. In this screen, the premier court painter Tosa Mitsuoki described the inevitable transience of beauty by imagining the melancholy hours after the departure of the reveling courtiers, who had created poems with quotations of appr...
About the Artist
Tosa Mitsuoki · 1617–1690
Japanese, 1617–1691