she may be princess of haiku but she's also the queen of the mums

1819

.開山は芭蕉さま也菊の花
kaizan wa bashô-sama
nari kiku no kana

the sect founder
is Great Basho...
chrysanthemums

Issa describes the devotion to chrysanthemums -- raising and admiring them -- as a Buddhist sect, whose "founder" (kaizan) is none other than the great haiku poet, Matsuo Bashô.

Translation © 2008 David G. Lanoue

My eyes which had seen all came back,
 Back to the white chrysan- themums.

Issho (ca. 1688)

Translation © 2008 Asatarō Miyamori

(comb from the wonderful barbaraanne's comb blog)

So deep into autumn
their fellow flowers
are all gone—
if the frost would only hold off,
leave me the incomparable chrysanthemums!

Saigyō (1118–90)

Translation © 2008 Burton Watson

POEMS AFTER DRINKING WINE

I built my hut beside a traveled road
Yet hear no noise of passing carts and horses.
You would like to know how it is done?
With the mind detached, one's place becomes remote.
Picking chrysanthemums by the eastern hedge
I catch sight of the distant southern hills:
The mountain air is lovely as the sun sets
And flocks of flying birds return together.
In these things is a fundamental truth
I would like to tell, but lack the words.

T'ao Ch'ien [or T'ao Yuan-ming Ch'ien T'ao ] (365–427)

Translation © 2008 James Robert Hightower

I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,
Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.
 Would you know how that is possible?
A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze long at the distant-summer hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day:
The flying birds two by two return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.

T'ao Ch'ien [or T'ao Yuan-ming Ch'ien T'ao ] (365–427)

Translation © 2008 Arthur Waley

FOUR POEMS WRITTEN WHILE DRUNK

1
Fortune and misfortune
 have no fixed abode;
This one and the other
 are given us in turn
Shao Ping working
 in his field of melons
Was much as he had been
 when Lord of Dongling.
Cold and hot seasons
 follow one another,
And the way of man
 will always be like this
The intelligent man
 sees that it must be so.
Having gone so far
 he will not doubt again,
But from that moment
 every day and evening
He will be happy
 holding a cup of wine.

2
The Tao has been lost
 nigh on a thousand years
And people everywhere
 are misers of their feelings
Though they have wine
 they do not dare to drink it,
And think of nothing save
 keeping their reputation.
All the things that make us
 care about our lives —
They are surely compassed
 within a single lifetime
And how much can that life
 amount to after all —
Swift as the surprise
 of pouring lightning,
Fixed and circumscribed
 within a hundred years —
Hemmed and bound to this
 what can we hope to do?

3
I built my house near where others dwell,
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses
You ask of me. “How can this be so?”
“When the heart is far the place of itself is distant.”
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
And gaze afar towards the southern mountains
The mountain air is fine at evening of the day
And flying birds return together homewards
Within these things there is a hint of Truth,
But when I start to tell it, I cannot find the words.

4
In the clear dawn
 I hear a knocking at my gate
And skirt on wrong way round
 go to open it myself
I ask the visitor
 “Pray, sir, who may you be?”
It is an old peasant
 who had a kindly thought,
And has come from far away
 bearing a jug of wine,
Because he thinks I am
 at variance with the times
“Sitting in patched clothes
 under a thatched roof —
This will never help you
 to get on in the world!
All the world together
 praises that alone,
So I wish, sir, that you too
 would float with the muddy stream”
“Old man, I am deeply
 grateful for your words,
But your advice does not accord
 with my inborn nature.
Even if I could learn
 to follow the curb and reins,
To go against one's nature
 is always a mistake
Let us just be happy
 and drink this wine together —
I fear my chariot
 can never be turned back.”

T'ao Ch'ien [or T'ao Yuan-ming Ch'ien T'ao ] (365–427)

Translation © 2008 William Acker

gakiku for haiku

inspired & informed by the luminous princess haiku, i bring note of a chrysanthemum exhibition happening for the next month at the new york botanical garden. (watch the video)

The chrysanthemum, the flower loved by Tao Yuan-ming (365-427), a distinguished Chinese poet of the East-Chin dynasty, was brought to

Japan around the beginning of the Heian Period (794-1192). It took root in Japan and was called by many different names such as "Katami-gusa (memory flower)" and "Chigiri-gusa (promise flower)."

In the Edo Period (1603-1868), there were several hundred varieties of chrysanthe- mum in Japan. Gakiku is a picture book dating from 1519 and published in this form in 1691, which introduces one hundred kinds of chrysanthemums with beautiful illustrations. The flower's name and a Chinese-style poem is also written for each of the flowers. The preface was written in 1519 by Eikin (1447-1537), a priest of the Rin'zai Zen Sect in Japan, which says that the pictures were the work of Junpo (1504-1549), the second son of a feudal lord of that time. We can also find the postface and the imprint at the end of this book, from which we learn that the book was published in 1691, and that the Chinese-style poems and the postface were added in that year.

Gakiku is the first picture book of chry- santhe- mums produced in Japan, possibly modeled on the Kikufu Hyakueizu, a translation of a Chinese book of the same kind published in 1686. The writing and lines are wood-block printed in black, and the illustrations are hand-painted in yellow, white, red, purple etc. according to the colors of the flowers. The book was once owned by Yokoyama Shigeru (1896-1980), a scholar of Japanese literature.

Following the publication of Gakiku, books on chrysanthemum cultivation were published one after another. There was a chrysanthemum boom and chrysanthemum shows were held in Kyoto every year. In the middle of the 18th century, the Kikukyo, a learned work on chrysanthemums, was written by Matsudaira Yorihiro (1702-1763), a feudal lord of Mutsu-Moriyama (now part of Fukushima prefecture, located to the north of Tokyo). In the first half of the 19th century, chrysanthemum craftwork became popular in the Komagome and Sugamo area of Edo (now part of Tokyo), and later on, at the end of the Edo Period, chrysanthemum dolls in Dango-zaka (now Bunkyo ward of Tokyo) became an attraction in autumn.

Throughout the Edo Period, the chrysanthemum attracted people of all classes. 1

(Digital images of all the pages of Gakiku are available here.
Please note that this is a different link from the one in the newsletter.)

mum's the word

they don't know who made this print, so they don't know when. the japanese chrysanthemum.

this one they do know, it's from the late 1800s, and it's by bairei kono, creator of lovely, simple images of fruits, vegetables, flowers, puppies, and other familiars of everyday life, seen unadorned, and beautifully.

in 1893, keika hasegawa put out his '100 chrysanthemums.' i can find no reference to anything else he ever did, nor anything about him. but i like his mums.

it was 1904 when seguy put out his art nouveau flower pouchoirs, and lithographs. japonisme in full... uh... bloom.

jo worked in the 1920s and 30s in japan, though it has been suggested that he may not be japanese. but don't you love that little grasshopper.

shodo kawarazaki's two prints come out of the 1950s, a tradition worth keeping, kept.

and this is from 1995, and not from japan at all, but much of this artist's work shows a clear understanding of the sensibility.

many thanks to cerf à paillettes for turning me on to robert kushner.







when japan did what it inadvertently did to teach us seeing, it left a lasting impression.

more beauty from iida takashimaya

Woman's dressing gown in two parts
Japanese, for Western market, about 1900
Retailer: Iida Takashimaya

Kyoto, Japan
Gown (center back length): 141.0 cm (55 1/2 in.); sash (overall) 33.0 x 301.0 cm (13 x 118 1/2 in.)
Silk plain weave (taffeta) embroidered with polychrome silk; silk plain weave lining; cord and tassel trim

Classification: Costumes

Pink silk taffeta dressing gown in kimono style with embroidered naturalistic chrysanthemums and butterflies in polychrome silks. Silk plain weave lining, padded hem and pleat in back of robe. Full sleeves gathered at shoulders and trimmed with braided silk cord and tassles. Matching sash of pink silk taffeta with double-sided embroidery of chrysanthemums in green brown and pink polychrome silk with knotted silk fringe. Gown labeled: S. Iida "Takashimaya" Silks and Embroideries. Kyoto.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

or adoration?

we have keika hasegawa making one of his 100 chrysanthemums prints in 1893 on the left,












and on the right we have eugene seguy making his lithographs of chrysanthemums in 1904.