Ancient Japanese calligraphy scroll (1101) attributed to Saigyō Hōshi. Explore elegant *shodō* & evocative waka poetry from the Later Collection of Japanese Poems. A rare glimpse into Heian-era art.
Explore the world of Saigyō Hōshi (1118-1190), a renowned Japanese poet & monk. Discover his evocative waka poetry exploring nature, impermanence & beauty – a key figure in Japanese literary tradition.
Although this rare, early surviving manuscript section of a Heian-period poetry anthology was certainly not written by the esteemed monk-poet Saigyō, based on comparison with accepted examples of his handwriting, in the course of its transmission through the centuries it became associated with him. We can assume that connoisseurs made the connection because the calligraphic style, with its bolder, brusquer forms of kana, a system of syllabic writing, was, in fact, most probably brushed about the time Saigyō was active as a poet of waka, thirty-one-syllable court poems of the type recorded here.
