Chinese Scenes

Hirano Chikuitsu was a member of the last generation to carry on the Japanese tradition of literati painting—a movement inspired by the art of Chinese scholar-amateurs, who championed personal expression and calligraphic brushwork. Chikuitsu exhibited at the most prestigious national salons and in 1929 he had a solo exhibition in Taiwan, which was then under Japanese control.

The poem inscribed on the right-hand screen, written in Chinese and possibly Chikuitsu’s own composition, reads in vertical columns, from right to left, as follows:

竹 歲 人 倚 丹 香 萬 三 無 一
逸 次 聽 欄 霞 霧 里 筆 邊 上
逸 壬 天 自 還 尚 雲 日 景 高
人 申 風 覚 映 潤 開 書 象 臺
寫 夏 數 吟 水 衣 世 乾 入 望
  日 聲 醉 光 霑 界 坤 詩 帝
  長 豁 明 濕 清 大 情 城

A climb to the tall terrace—
  a view of the imperial city:
A limitless panorama of images
  bringing poetic feeling!
With threefold brush, everyday
  I describe the vastness of the cosmos;
Over ten thousand miles, the clouds open,
  revealing a world of purity!
By fragrant fog now fructifying,
  my clothes are touched and moistened;
With rosy mists again reflecting,
  the river’s brilliance shines!
I lean on the balustrade, poetic voice
  inspired, intoxicated:
And now are heard the winds of Heaven,
  in several voices, long [enduring].

  On a summer day in a water-monkey year
  Painted by Chikuitsu

—Transcription and translation by Jonathan Chaves