Poem by Gyokuzan

Poem by Gyokuzan is an early-nineteenth-century hanging scroll (118.27 x 50.01 cm) of San'yō's calligraphy, held by the Minneapolis Institute of Art (accession 2013.29.252). The work transcribes a Chinese-verse poem by the painter and scholar Okada Gyokuzan, a contemporary figure in the literati circles San'yō moved through in Kyoto. As a calligraphic object the scroll belongs to the dominant category of San'yō's surviving output: large-format hanging scrolls on which he wrote out either his own kanshi or, as here, the verses of friends and respected predecessors in his characteristic cursive script. The format — a tall column of fluid, ligatured characters mounted as a hanging scroll for display in a tokonoma alcove — is the standard nineteenth-century way of presenting calligraphy as art rather than as text, and San'yō's hand is among the most highly regarded examples of late-Edo cursive script. The work, part of the Mary Griggs Burke collection now at MIA, exemplifies the literati conception of calligraphy, poetry, and painting as a single continuous practice.