# A Poem from the Shin Kokinshu with Design of Shinobugusa Grasses

- By: Kôetsu (Japanese, 1558-1637)
- Date: 1605-10
- Medium: Fragment of a handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink, gold, silver-colored pigment, and mica on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 33.6 × 44.5 cm (13 1/4 × 17 1/2 in.); With mounting: 121.6 × 57.5 cm (47 7/8 × 22 5/8 in.); Including lower roller: H.: 62.9 cm (24 3/4 in.)
- Culture: Japan
- Credit line: Louise Lutz Estate; through prior gift of the Estate of Clara Douglas; purchased with funds provided bys of Frances and Edward Blair, Heather B. and Richard Black, George and Roberta Mann, Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece III
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/228951)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/2b8b1a27f51d6ae241242f904deecd7a.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Calligrapher Hon’ami Kōetsu and designer-illustrator Tawaraya Sōtatsu collaborated to create the handscroll from which this fragment comes. Tawaraya and his studio produced the moss fern (shinobugusa) designs printed with silver and gold ink rhythmically across the paper. They may have used actual ferns to make these impressions.

In Japan, Kōetsu is regarded as one of the three great brushes (calligraphers) of the 16th and 17th centuries. Here, he alternated between thickly inked and thinly drawn characters to reproduce a classic poem from the 1205 anthology Shin kokinshu (New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern). It reads:

Some late, some early, All the plum flowers blossomed finally. Who planted their seeds this way?

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0