Autumn Maples with Poem Slips
In the seventeenth century Japanese aristocrats often composed and recited classical poetry while viewing foliage at appointed times of the year. During festivities, poems would be carefully written on patterned slips of paper (tanzaku) and tied to the branches of trees. In this screen, the premier court painter Tosa Mitsuoki described the inevitable transience of beauty by imagining the melancholy hours after the departure of the reveling courtiers, who had created poems with quotations of appropriate seasonal poetry from twelfth- and thirteenth-century anthologies inscribed on the narrow strips. The slips flutter in the gentle breeze, fastened to a maple bursting with red leaves in autumn. A companion screen, also in the Art Institute’s collection, depicts a cherry tree in full bloom in spring. The screens were either commissioned by or given to Empress Tōfukumon-in, a daughter of the Tokugawa shogun (military leader), who married the emperor Gomizunoo (reigned 1611–29). In an era otherwise marked by the feudal shogunate’s increasing control over imperial prerogatives, this royal couple encouraged a renaissance of courtly taste that nostalgically evoked early medieval aristocratic life. This pair of screens remains as evidence of this cultural flowering.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Tosa Mitsuoki
- Date
- c. 1675
- Dimensions
- 144 × 286 cm (56 3/4 × 112 5/8 in.)
- Origin
- Japan
- Department
- Arts of Asia
- Holding institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- art-institute-chicago
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Kate S. Buckingham Endowment
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
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Landscapes Both · 99%
Maple trees, autumn foliage, low hills, grasses, and open atmospheric space form the visible landscape subject, matching the catalog's listed subject of landscapes.
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Flora Both · 99%
Branching maple trees and extensive red-orange foliage dominate the composition, directly matching the catalog's subjects of trees, maple trees, and foliage.
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The Seasons Both · 99%
The red maple foliage and the catalog's explicit identification of autumn and fall establish a seasonal subject.
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Text Both · 98%
Numerous written paper slips are visibly attached to the branches, while the catalog identifies them as tanzaku bearing seasonal poetry.
Visual Qualities
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Asymmetrical Visual · 96%
The trees and foliage are concentrated toward the left and middle of the screen, while the right side contains substantially more open gold ground.
Medium and Techniques
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Painting Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the object as a painting and describes it as a six-panel screen; the image visibly shows painted trees, foliage, landscape, and hanging paper slips.
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Gold Leaf and Gilding Metadata · 99%
The catalog explicitly identifies gold leaf as part of the medium, and the image shows a gilded-looking ground.
Time Periods
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17th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog dates the work to circa 1675, placing it in the seventeenth century.
Geographic Regions
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Japanese Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog gives Japan as the place of origin and identifies Tosa Mitsuoki as Japanese.
Materials
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Gold Metadata · 99%
The catalog specifies gold leaf and gold powder on silk; the image visibly shows an extensive gold ground.
Source & rights
Tosa Mitsuoki. Autumn Maples with Poem Slips. The Art Institute of Chicago.
High-resolution sources
- IIIF image service ↗ 1,686 × 836 · Art Institute Chicago · Availability not yet probed