Utagawa Kunimaru (歌川国丸) (artist 1794 – 1829)
Viewing large peonies
ca 1820
29.625 in x 14.375 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Saikarō Kunimaru ga
彩霞楼国丸画
Publisher: Yamaguchiya Tōbei
(Marks 591 - seal 15-005)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Peony viewing and peony viewing parties have a long history in the Far East. Before it was transplanted into Japan, the Chinese had already established customs related to the 'queen of flowers.' Chu Yu-tun (朱有燉: 1379-1439) created a series of palace plays all centered on individual flower-viewing gatherings. One of these was for the peony. Chu wrote that only during a Great Peace could a society, which included everything from people to plants, prosper and reach new heights. He noted that "...during the K'ai-yüan reign period (713-741) of the T'ang dynasty, the world was at peace, and so the peony flourished in Ch'ang-an." The peony continued to be a subject of interest and appreciation during the Sung dynasty and many of the literati wrote poems about this flower.
Whereas cultural transfers from one country to the next, like from China to Japan, are more often adopted and adapted with understandable alterations. They never quite come to their new home fully formed, but the essence of what drew the Chinese scholars to the peony in the first place is easily appreciated by the Japanese aesthetes.
Yosa Buson (与謝 蕪村: 1716-1783) wrote:
Eibutsu no
shi o kuchizusamu
botan kana
詠物の
詩を口ずさむ
牡丹哉
The peony
makes me recite
a poem on things
Source: Obsessions with the Sino-Japanese Polarity in Japanese Literature by Atsuko Sakaki, University of Hawaii Press, 2005, page 73.
"Peony viewing was imported from China to Japan as an essential activity of the literati. Bai Juyi's criticism of the affluent urban residents' spending on the flower "Mudan fang" (Peony is beautiful) was lost on the Japanese audience for the second time (the first had been when the poem itself had been imported). While the mid-T'ang poet intended satire may have eluded the Heian court because of the Japanese emphasis on the lyrical rather than the political, this time, the Japanese failed to recognize it because of the shift from an ideological to a materialist reception of Chinese culture." (Ibid., page 76)
Another poet wrote:
Tōin mo
sukoshi iitaki
botan kana
The peony
makes me feel like
speaking in Chinese
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There is a very small sub-genre of ukiyo prints showing beauties walking along viewing giant peonies. Several artists other than Kunimaru created illustrations for this motif including Kiyonaga, Hiroshige and Toyokuni III, et al. We have added a few jpegs demonstrating this somewhat rarefied theme.
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Each of the panels in this triptych represent a single bijin standing in the foreground. In the background above the peonies are three poems which we believe are by three different poets. As yet we have not been able to translate these poems or identify the signatures of the individuals who wrote them.
Yamaguchiya Tōbei (山口屋藤兵衛) (publisher)
beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)