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Scenes from Essays in Idleness

徒然草図屏風

late 1700s–early 1800s

Matsumura Goshun 松村呉春

(Japanese, 1752–1811)
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Culture
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Medium
One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper
Measurements
Image: 146.5 x 330.7 cm (57 11/16 x 130 3/16 in.); Overall: 170.2 x 375.8 cm (67 x 147 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1971.43.1
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Matsumura Goshun inscribed passages from Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō’s (1283–1350) well-known collection of anecdotes, Essays in Idleness, across the top of the panels of this screen and its pair. Goshun illustrated the narratives with his vision of the figures who feature in them. The texts cascade down from right to left, forming unique compositional relationships with the images below. The episodes offer a veritable portrait of human idiosyncrasy, from one man’s deep faith in radishes to another’s inability to avoid nicknames.
A six-panel folding screen features six ink and color vignettes on a tan background. Vertical columns of black calligraphy occupy the upper portion of each panel, with figures clustered below. From left to right, these include a seated fox, a nobleman, a laborer, a seated monk, two standing monks, and a seated man with a child. Decorative patterned borders edge the top and bottom, with the figures primarily rendered in muted grays and browns.

Scenes from Essays in Idleness

late 1700s–early 1800s

Matsumura Goshun

(Japanese, 1752–1811)
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

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