Fujiwara no Kintsune

It's much more difficult for me to write these little monthly memos when my wife is not here to help me. I sit there with my pile of books and see what I can learn. In one book I read that Fujiwara no Kintsune (the family name of this month's poet) wrote this poem while in retirement at his famous Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji) in Kyoto. I check another book, and that one tells me that Ashikaga no Yoshimitsu was the man who built that famous pavilion, and that this poet lived not there, but at Saionji, and was actually known as 'Saionji no Kintsune'. It takes me a while to get this far in the tangled tale, trying to read the difficult kanji (many of which are old ones, and not in my modern dictionary), and I realize I am a bit out of my depth. I turn to the poem ....

I feel like I could perhaps understand this. It seems like the type of poem an elderly poet would write, feeling that he was approaching the end of his life. I take a peek at one of the 'analysis' books ... 'an expression of his feeling on losing political power to the Ashikagas...' Here we go again ... Michiyo ... heeeelp!

At least I don't need help to talk about the print! In these memos I used to write things like, 'I have changed one of the colours in this month's print ....', etc. etc. Recently though, I don't even bother to tell you this, and now that I look over this year's work again, I find that only two of the ten prints are even close to the original colours. I am obviously feeling more confident about mixing colours, but still have to admit that this is the most difficult part for me. Sometimes, after all the mixing and testing, and even after finishing all the printing, I look at the final result and still can't decide if it looks alright .... I especially felt this way last month, and was thus very relieved to get encouraging notes in the mail from a few of you: 'Sawayaka!', 'Simple, but beautiful', 'Oh!' escaped my lips when I saw it... (thank you, Takeda-san!)

I had better not get too confident though, and I certainly realize that to the eyes of a master printer like Matsuzaki-san, my colours are still very simplistic, and my printing skills are yet quite rudimentary. But that doesn't bother me. Because I know that there is continual improvement. I look back at my prints from four years ago, and sometimes feel embarrassed that I accepted payment for them. A few years from now, when I look back at this print, will I feel just as embarrassed? I hope so!

December 1992

Translation - Haruo Miyata / 1981 Osaka Kyoiku Tosho Co. Ltd.