Maruyama Ōshō
Cuckoo and Moon, 1950s
Hanging scroll; ink and colors on paper
Overall size 64 x 8 in. (162.5 x 20 cm)
Image size 35¾ x 7¼ in. (90.5 x 18.5 cm)
Image size 35¾ x 7¼ in. (90.5 x 18.5 cm)
T-5369
Further images
Signed at lower right Ōshō 應祥; sealed Shizui 子瑞 With the original paulownai-wood tomobako storage box, inscribed outside Hototogisu (Cuckoo), signed inside Ōshō jidai (inscribed by Ōshō); seal: Ōshō 應祥;...
Signed at lower right Ōshō 應祥; sealed Shizui 子瑞
With the original paulownai-wood tomobako storage box, inscribed outside Hototogisu (Cuckoo), signed inside Ōshō jidai (inscribed by Ōshō); seal: Ōshō 應祥; the outer wrapper labeled Ōshō Hotogisu.
In this evocative and quietly melancholic composition, a descendant of one of Kyoto's most distinguished artistic lineages contrasts sharply observed naturalistic brushwork with softly modulated passages of ink to depict a hototogisu (cuckoo, Cuculus poliocephalus) passing before the moon at daybreak. The bird is rendered with crisp, economical strokes, while the surrounding forms fade into a haze of diluted ink, creating an impression of mist and early morning light. Nearly half the scroll is left unpainted, an eloquent use of negative space that conveys both the stillness of dawn and the remoteness of the bird's plaintive, mysterious call, quite unlike the two-note song of the European cuckoo or the stuttering, wooden sound of the North American yellow-billed cuckoo. Heralding the beginning of summer in the fifth lunar month, the first hototogisu of the year was eagerly awaited in pre-modern Japan and the motif of the bird flying beneath the moon has a long history in art and literature, perhaps most memorably expressed in this poem by Fujiwara no Sanesada (1139-1191):
Hototogisu / nakitsuru kata o / nagamureba / tada ariake no / tsuki zo nokoreru
When I look again / toward the place from which / the hototogisu called / I see nothing but the moon / lingering in the brightening sky.
The bird flies so swiftly that by the time the poet turns toward the sound, it has already vanished from sight. Sanesada’s words capture a sense of longing and incompleteness, touched by the loneliness that lingers in the stillness before dawn. Later readers readily applied its emotional logic to fleeting encounters, missed opportunities, and remembered lovers, even though the poem itself is not explicitly about love. Like the poem, this painting invites the viewer to contemplate a presence already gone, leaving behind only silence, moonlight, and memory.
Maruyama Ōshō (birth name: Kunii Kentarō) was born in Kyoto as the son of Maruyama Ōyō, a fifth-generation descendant of Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795), one of the defining figures in the history of Japanese painting. Although the direct Maruyama line had died out some fifty years earlier, the lineage was continued through the Kunii family when a sister of Maruyama Ōshin, the school's third head, married into that household. Her son, Kunii Ōbun, became the fifth head of the Maruyama lineage, followed in turn by Ōyō and then Ōshō, who styled himself the seventh generation of the Maruyama school. Ōshō first studied under his father and later attended the Kyoto Municipal School of Painting. After his father's death, he spent a period training with Yamamoto Shunkyo, one of the leading painters of early twentieth-century Kyoto. He was highly respected as an authority on the authentication and appraisal of Maruyama-school paintings. His use of the art name Shizui, impressed as a seal beneath the signature on this painting, was carefully considered: the first character, shi (子), formed part of his father's art name, while the second, zui (瑞), recalls Maruyama Ōzui, the eldest son of Ōkyo and second head of the Maruyama school.
With the original paulownai-wood tomobako storage box, inscribed outside Hototogisu (Cuckoo), signed inside Ōshō jidai (inscribed by Ōshō); seal: Ōshō 應祥; the outer wrapper labeled Ōshō Hotogisu.
In this evocative and quietly melancholic composition, a descendant of one of Kyoto's most distinguished artistic lineages contrasts sharply observed naturalistic brushwork with softly modulated passages of ink to depict a hototogisu (cuckoo, Cuculus poliocephalus) passing before the moon at daybreak. The bird is rendered with crisp, economical strokes, while the surrounding forms fade into a haze of diluted ink, creating an impression of mist and early morning light. Nearly half the scroll is left unpainted, an eloquent use of negative space that conveys both the stillness of dawn and the remoteness of the bird's plaintive, mysterious call, quite unlike the two-note song of the European cuckoo or the stuttering, wooden sound of the North American yellow-billed cuckoo. Heralding the beginning of summer in the fifth lunar month, the first hototogisu of the year was eagerly awaited in pre-modern Japan and the motif of the bird flying beneath the moon has a long history in art and literature, perhaps most memorably expressed in this poem by Fujiwara no Sanesada (1139-1191):
Hototogisu / nakitsuru kata o / nagamureba / tada ariake no / tsuki zo nokoreru
When I look again / toward the place from which / the hototogisu called / I see nothing but the moon / lingering in the brightening sky.
The bird flies so swiftly that by the time the poet turns toward the sound, it has already vanished from sight. Sanesada’s words capture a sense of longing and incompleteness, touched by the loneliness that lingers in the stillness before dawn. Later readers readily applied its emotional logic to fleeting encounters, missed opportunities, and remembered lovers, even though the poem itself is not explicitly about love. Like the poem, this painting invites the viewer to contemplate a presence already gone, leaving behind only silence, moonlight, and memory.
Maruyama Ōshō (birth name: Kunii Kentarō) was born in Kyoto as the son of Maruyama Ōyō, a fifth-generation descendant of Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795), one of the defining figures in the history of Japanese painting. Although the direct Maruyama line had died out some fifty years earlier, the lineage was continued through the Kunii family when a sister of Maruyama Ōshin, the school's third head, married into that household. Her son, Kunii Ōbun, became the fifth head of the Maruyama lineage, followed in turn by Ōyō and then Ōshō, who styled himself the seventh generation of the Maruyama school. Ōshō first studied under his father and later attended the Kyoto Municipal School of Painting. After his father's death, he spent a period training with Yamamoto Shunkyo, one of the leading painters of early twentieth-century Kyoto. He was highly respected as an authority on the authentication and appraisal of Maruyama-school paintings. His use of the art name Shizui, impressed as a seal beneath the signature on this painting, was carefully considered: the first character, shi (子), formed part of his father's art name, while the second, zui (瑞), recalls Maruyama Ōzui, the eldest son of Ōkyo and second head of the Maruyama school.