Narihira Riding Below Fuji

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Artist: Sakai Hōitsu (Japanese, 1761–1828)
Medium: Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk
Size: 48 7/16 x 23 1/4 in. (123.03 x 59.06 cm) (image); 82 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. (209.55 x 82.55 cm) (sheet)
Museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rights: Public Domain Mark

Sakai Hōitsu was the son of the Lord of Himeiji. After mastering several painting styles, he became interested in the decorative Rinpa school, named after one of its greatest masters, Ogata Korin. Searching out remaining works by Korin, who had died forty-five years before Hōitsu's birth, he published a woodblock book of Korin's works. This painting, with its classical theme, softly rounded forms and beautiful colors, continues the style championed by Korin.

The painting illustrates Ariwara Narihira (825-80), the famously handsome ninth century poet who, it is said, was banished from court for having an affair with an imperial consort. While traveling to his exile in the deep north, Narihira passed beneath Mount Fuji, cloaked in newly fallen snow. Noting the strangeness of snow so close to summer, Narihira composed the following poem:

Fuji is a mountain that has no sense of time. What season does it take this for That it should be dappled with newly fallen snow?

Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.