HIGHLIGHT

Yosa Buson, renowned alongside Matsuo Basho and Kobayashi Issa as a master of Edo-period haikai, excelled not only as a poet but also as a painter. Self-taught in various artistic techniques, he developed a unique approach known as haiga, integrating poetic sentiment into painting. A representative work is Okuno Michi Zukan (1777, An’ei 7), which illustrates Basho’s haiku.

Buson was born in Settsu Province in Kyōhō 1 (1716), twenty-two years after Basho’s death. His original family name was Tani (or Taniguchi), later adopting the surname Yosa. Details about his parents remain uncertain; his father is said to have been a village headman, and his mother possibly came from Yosa District. Around the age of twenty, he moved to Edo and became a disciple of the haiku poet Yahan-tei Sōa (Hayano Hahito), who had relocated from Kyoto. He lived as an apprentice and adopted the haigo “Saimachi.” Following Sōa’s death in Kanpō 2 (1742), Buson left Edo and traveled to Shimodate in Yūki, staying with fellow disciple Sunaoka Gantō, and embarked on a journey of poetic practice across various regions. During this period, he also studied painting independently, practicing Chinese Southern Song painting and training at temples and shrines in Kyoto, as well as in Tango and Sanuki.

This work bears a seal used exclusively during the Shimodate period in Yūki, dating from Kanpō 2 to Hōreki 1 (circa 1742–1751), and is thus considered to be a work from Buson’s late thirties. The central scroll depicts a figure writing before a warrior in red armor, with a simple design rendered solely in gofun on the clothing. On the side scrolls, one figure holds a fan for Noh performance, with a drum nearby; the right figure wears scarlet hakama outlined in gold, and gold is also used on the patterns of the upper garment, fan, and drum. The left figure layers a scarlet jacket with gold chidori patterns over gauze, and wears a light green hakama decorated with a spider-web motif in gold. The composition, with its unusual arrangement and ample negative space, shows traces of the Rimpa school, while the overall style reflects a rustic, unpretentious sensibility, more textured and expressive than his later works.

The Shimodate period represents what is often referred to as his “earlier works,” spanning roughly ten years of travel in the Kanto and Tohoku regions, followed by three years in Tango. Buson moved to Kyoto in Hōreki 1 (1751) and later traveled to Tango in Hōreki 4 (1754), staying at Kenshō-ji Temple in Miyazu. During his approximately three-year stay in Hōreki 7 (1757), he interacted with fellow haikai poets and produced numerous paintings, including folding screens. Among his Japanese-style works from the Tango period, Seibu-zu (six-panel half-screen) and Dengaku Chaya-zu (six-panel half-screen), depicting figures such as servants and townspeople, show similarities to the figures in this work. Likewise, Oihakune-zu (four-panel Sugito-e) painted during the Kanto travel period (Shimodate period) shares stylistic tendencies, supporting the attribution of this work to the later phase of the Shimodate period.