Suzuki Harunobu (鈴木春信) (artist 1724 – 1770)

The Kōya Jewel River, a Famous Place in Kii Province (Kōya no Tamagawa, Kiinokuni no meisho), from the series The Six Jewel Rivers in Popular Customs (Fūzoku Mu Tamagawa - 風俗六玉川)

Print

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Date:ca 1769 – 1770
Medium:Japanese woodblock prints
Inscription:Signed: Suzuki Harunobu ga (鈴木春信画)
Links Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
British Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art - entitled 'A young komuso'
Chazen Museum of Art Description:"A young man attired as a date kommusō is walking along a raised path beside which kikyō (bell-flowers) are in bloom. It is therefore autumn: the valley behind is filled with mist; and on hills in the distance beyond is the finial of a pagoda on Mt. Kōya. The young man carries a shakuhachi and a deep basket hat (tengai), and wears a friar's robes of pongee silk (tsumugi), together with a black kesa (Zen stole). The shakuhachi bag hanging from his sash has a gaudy design of a carp in surging water. In the square cartouche... is the title of the poem, together with a portrait identified as the monk and poet Kūkai; in the tanzaku cartouche beside it is the series title, and a poem by him as follows:

wasurete mo
kumu ya shitsuran
tabibito no
Takano no oku no
Tamagawa no mizu

However much the
traveller forgets, he will
surely scoop water
from the Crystal River in
the depth of Mount Takano.

Quoted from: The Harunobu Decade by David Waterhouse, vol. 1, text, p. 313, #565.

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Illustrated

1) in black and white in The Japanese Pillar Print, Jacob Pins, Roger G. Sawers Publishing, 1982, plate 142, p. 107. Pins gives the title Gompachi disguised as a komuso on the bank of a river. The curatorial notes at the British Museum refer to this as: "Gompachi dressed as komuso walking near river, with portrait of poet Kukai, inscription."

2) in color in The Harunobu Decade by David Waterhouse, Hotei Publishing, 2013, volume 2, plate 565. And again in volume 1 in black and white on page 313. On page 314 Waterhouse wrote: "The poem on this print is from the Fūga waka shū, XVII, 1778... and is by Kūkai, otherwise known as Kōbō Daishi (774-835). Kūkai, founder of the Shingon school of Japanese Buddhism, opened his seminary on Mt. Kōya in 816, ten years after returning from studying in China.... The same poem... whatever Kūkai may have meant by it, Timon Screech points out... that it can be and probably was interpreted by Harunobu's contemporaries as having homosexual overtones."

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Waterhouse describes this figure as a young man. Margaret Gentles, on the other hand, described it as 'a young lady in kamusō attire. Binyon thought it was 'the youth Gonpachi'. Waterhouse goes on to say: "Unlike other members of the Buddhist clergy, kamusō did not shave their heads; and the effeminate appearance of the young man is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he is a date kamusō - what cowboys would call a dude. In his facetious way, Harunobu illustrates Kūkai's poem with a portrait of one of these creatures, in an oblique reference to the popular association of Kūkai and homosexuality; it is incorrect to see the figure as depicting the famous lover Shirai Gonpachi."
Related entities pillar print (hashira-e - 柱絵) (genre)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (genre)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
Shirai Gonpachi (白井権八) (role)

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