National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 134, December 2003
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Selections from NDL Collection
Addition of contents to
the Rare Books Image Database
The NDL has provided images of rare books and old materials to the public in the "Rare Books Image Database"(Japanese only) on the NDL web site. In July 2003, 71 items were added to the database, so 243 Japanese and Chinese books (21,067 images) and 526 colored woodblock prints (12,292 images) are now available in total.
Newly added materials
- Woodblock prints: Bishamon tenno gazo (a picture of Bishamon tenno, one of the 4 guardian deities in Buddhism), Seinan senso nishikie (colored woodblock prints of scenes of the Satsuma Rebellion)
- Block books: Kobun kokyo (a book of filial piety), Chichi no on (a collection of haiku compiled by Ichikawa Danjuro II in memory of his late father)
- Masaoka Shiki's autograph manuscripts: Kusabana cho (a book of flower sketches), Shiki koji jiga syozo (a self-portrait of Shiki), Zeppitsu sanku (his last three haiku)
- Shoka tanzaku jo (a book holding paper strips bearing waka or kyoka ( short poems) composed by comic poets of Japanese classical scholars)
- Materials recently designated as rare and semi-rare books: Yashima (4 picture scrolls of episodes from the Gempei war), Gakiku (a picture book of chrysanthemums; details in NDL Newsletter 133), Mitate Sano no watari (the image is given below),
etc.
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Mitate
Sano no watari
("Crossing at Sano" Mitate ) Illustration: Suzuki Harunobu
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At dusk in heavy snow, a young woman is trudging across a bridge. Her feet are bare except for black lacquered clogs; she is holding one long sleeve of her scarlet kimono over her head to protect it from the driving snow.
This picture is based on a waka (Japanese short poem) "Sano no watari" by Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241) in Shin kokin wakashu. The original waka features Teika himself, but in this picture, a contemporary young woman takes his place. A picture substituting a contemporary figure for a person in the past like this is called "Mitate-e."
This picture is an e-goyomi, picture calendar, of a kind called daisho-reki. The Daisho-reki calendar showed the long months (of 30 days) and the short months (of 29 days), which changed year by year. This is a daisho-reki of 1765. The numbers are printed very small at the bottom right corner of the picture on the side of the snow-covered bridge.
SUZUKI Harunobu (1725?-70) was an ukiyoe artist working in Edo in the mid-18th century (related article). He was the leading artist in the early stage of the multicolor woodblock prints called nishikie, but little is known about his life. His work is celebrated both inside and outside Japan for its colors, poetical atmosphere, and elegance and refinement.
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