Artist: Tani Bunchō
Date: 1817
Museum: Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, United States)
Technique: Silk
Few works embody the convergence of venerable cultural practices and novel pictorial approaches in Edo painting more strikingly than this view of a full moon hovering over reeds. Framed as if seen through a window, the image encapsulates the tradition of moon-viewing, an activity long associated with friendship and yearning: no matter the physical distance separating loved ones, all can look up at the night sky and gaze on the same moon. The enormous archaic seal amplifies this connection to the past. Yet Bunchō does not simply repeat an established ink-painting theme. The unusual size of the image and Western-style low horizon generate a feeling of “thereness,” and the inscription confirms that the work commemorates an actual harvest moon gathering in Edo in the year 1817. By interweaving a singular personal episode with that of countless historical predecessors, Bunchō creates a “true view,” an image rooted not in optical reality but in the subjective experience of a site.
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