Millet Fields under Sun and Moon

<BIG>右隻には、太陽の明るい日差しの下、粟畑が描かれており、その葉は鮮やかな緑青の絵の具で彩られている。一方、左隻には、月光の下、葉は褐色となって寄りあっている。
この屏風は、印章・落款を欠くが、野辺の草木類を緻密に描いた、土佐派の絵師によるものであろう。粟の穂先には、胡粉で細かに白く点じられている。もし、この屏風を、畳上で囲われて鑑賞したならば、双方の穂波が心地よい毛布のように見えるだろう。
屏風に太陽と月を対に表わすことは、既に数百年前より行われており、仏教、道教、神道と関連付けられている。しかし、この作品のように、穀物との組み合わせは、16世紀に入ってからのことで、恐らく、当時、農耕技術や品種改良などにより、農作物が増産したことに関係するのであろう。</BIG>
Washed in bright sunlight on the right, a field of millet is adorned with leaves painted with a vibrant green malachite, while on the left the browned leaves of the plants nestle together under the moonlight.
Lacking both a signature and any identifying seals, these screens are likely the work of an artist from the Tosa school of painting, who, although unknown to us today, was highly accurate in his botanical rendering of the fields. Tiny white dots of shell-white pigment (gofun) form a patterned surface across the full heads of grain. Viewers who sat on tatami mats surrounded by these screens would have felt as if the billowing mass of each field was like a comfortable blanket that they could pull over themselves at night.
The pairing of the sun and the moon on screens dates back several centuries and carries Buddhist, Daoist, and Shinto associations. But its combination with edible grains, as seen here, is a 16th-century innovation that is perhaps the result of improved farming technologies and seed strains that caused agricultural yields to increase.
Rotation 2: August 15-September 27, 2009