Gendai haigashū 現代俳画集
FSC-GR-780.923
Commentary by Erin Schoneveld
Posted September 5, 2016

Aki no bu (Autumn) is the third part of the rare four-volume set of haiga (drawings associated with haiku) titled Gendai haigashū (A collection of modern haiga). The term haiga (俳画) represents the marriage of the seventeen-syllable (5-7-5) poetic form of haiku (俳句) with ga (画, or “painting”). This form of text-image expression resulted from the development of haiku during the previous Edo period (1600–1868).

Haiga are characterized by their economy of creative and often abbreviated, brushstrokes. [1]There are two types. The first consists of an image conceived in concert with a haiku in which the composition illustrates an aspect of the poem, subtly adding another emotional dimension to the viewer’s interpretation and reading of the poem. [2] The second assumes the form of a portrait of a celebrated haiku poet with an example of his or her verse. [3]

Distinguished haiga artists such as Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 (1716–1784) were known to create both verse and image, but printed haiga were often a collaborative effort between a talented poet and an accomplished artist. [4] From the seventeenth century onward, printed haiku and later haiga became a primary market for many book publishers. Edo-period printed haiga include such works as Wakan rōei haiga shō (A collection of haiga from Japanese and Chinese poems to sing; 1850, FSC-GR-780.885) published by Yamashiroya Magojūrō (山城屋孫十郎).

The illustrations in Gendai haigashū were compiled by the editor Shimada Yūkichi (dates unknown), printed by Kishi Kageyoshi, and designed by twenty-seven artists (not all are named). In Aki no bu (1917) this includes Nakamura Fusetsu 中村不折 (1866–1943), Ogawa Usen 小川芋銭 (1868–1938), Honda Fuyuki 本多冬城 (dates unknown), Tomita Keisen 富田渓仙 (1879–1936), Ishii Hakutei 石井柏亭 (1882–1958), Ōta Saburō 太田三郎 (1884–1969), Kosugi Misei 小杉未醒 (1881–1964), and Shimomura Izan 下村為山 (1865–1949), among others. Although all the participating artists in this and the other three volumes were trained in either the Western-style (yōga 洋画) or Japanese-style (nihonga 日本画) painting traditions, they all contributed images—and in a few cases a poem—in the literati haiga tradition. There are a total of one hundred and nineteen images in the four volumes: twenty-eight in Haru no bu, thirty-one in Natsu no bu, and thirty in both Aki no bu and Fuyu no bu.

Each of the four volumes is linked to one of the four seasons, with the compositions drawing upon seasonal imagery and references that invoke feelings of thoughtful contemplation, playful irreverence, and nostalgia for days gone by. Aki no bu portrays the harvest, branches heavily pendent with persimmons, and the changing colors of the autumnal foliage. Ōta Saburō’s “Mountain Rain” (pp. 36–37) evokes the autumn rainy season (akisame 秋雨) in the depiction of a figure carrying two baskets on a shoulder yoke as he races across a footbridge during a sudden shower. A red mountain looms in the distance, a threatening rain cloud is in the sky, and a swollen river sweeps under the bridge.

The color woodcuts in all the volumes, including this duplicate for Aki no bu,are vibrant, the images clear and precise. It is unusual to have the complete set (see Gendai haigashū FSC-GR-780.919.1-4 for all four), and the condition and quality of the Pulverer volumes are excellent.

Selected readings:
Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987), see esp. vol. 1, 549–59.

C. H. Mitchell, with the assistance of Osamu Ueda, The Illustrated Books of the Nanga, Maruyama, Shijo and Other Related Schools of Japan. A Biobibliography (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1972).

Helen Merritt, Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990).

Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada, Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900–1975 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1992).

Melinda Takeuchi, Poem Paintings: An Exhibition 29th November–13th December, 1977 (London: Barling, 1977).

Copies in other collections:
The British Museum, London
Worcester Art Museum

[1] Takeuchi 1977, 6–7.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Hillier 1987, vol. 1, 550.
[5] Mitchell 1972, 266.

Gendai haiga shū