18th century

Calligraphy of a Poem by Wang Wei

Shakuhachi Jakugon

Japanese, 1702 - 1771

Jakugon was a Shingon priest, and a contemporary of such Japanese literati as Ike Taiga (1723-1776). His graceful, fluent style of calligraphy was already much admired in his own time, and he was esteemed as one of the three great priest-calligraphers of the Edo period. The lines Jakugon brushed here are by the Chinese Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei (699-759), one of the icons of literati culture.

The verse reads:

Green forests cover the four directions with dense deep shade.
Every day untrodden mosses cushion the courtyard more thickly in bluish grey.
Under tall pines the hermit sprawls, legs outstretched,
Turning upon the vulgar crowd only the whites of his eyes.

In Chinese literature, the legend of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove says that these sages would converse only with the intelligent. When they met the "vulgar" they looked at them in contempt only through the "whites of their eyes."