The Burke Collection
Three poems from Kokin wakashū (古今和歌集)
Click to enlarge
509-1

Catalogue information

Commonly known as Araki-gire (荒木切)

Late Heian period, second half of 11th century

Page from book, mounted as hanging scroll; ink on decorated paper

20.3 x 13.8 cm (8 x 5 3/8 in.)

Donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation in 2015

Ex Coll.: Araki Sōhaku

Literature

Komatsu Shigemi 1985b, vol. 1, p. 55
Komatsu Shigemi
1985b
[Editor]. Kohitsu meihin shō (Selected masterpieces of old calligraphy). 3 vols. Nihon meiseki sōkan (Collection of famous calligraphies of Japan), 95–97. Tokyo: Nigensha.

See full bibliography

;
Tokyo National Museum 1985a, no. 71
Tokyo National Museum
1985a
Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: New York Burke Collection / A Selection of Japanese Art from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Chunichi Shimbun.

See full bibliography

;
­Avitabile 1990, no. 26
Avitabile, Gunhild
1990
[Editor]. Die Kunst des alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection, New York. Exh. cat. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

See full bibliography

;
Murase 2000, no. 18.
Murase, Miyeko
2000
Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

See full bibliography

See also

This artwork was published as catalogue entry 509 in Volume I of Art through a Lifetime.

Additional details

Text

[Poem 450] Only briefly do the autumn grasses display their beauties, / yet each night the dew has come to dye the petals deeper colors.

[Poem 451 by Ariwara no Shigeharu (d. ca. 905)]

Nigatake [Long-Jointed Bamboo] // Shigeharu // Difficult it is to depend on sips of dew / to sustain one’s life — / so anxiously they pipe long, lonely hours, / insects of the fields.

[Poem 452 by Kagenori no Ōkimi (fl. late 9th c)]

Kawatake [Mushroom] // Kagenori no Ōkimi // Already the moon has half climbed the celestial dome / as night grows old — / oh autumn wind from the peaks / blow it backward on its course!