In the Edo period
Painted by a mysterious artist
Golden painting.

The first thing that caught my eye was a piece where the facial expression seemed to be obscured by white.

The moment I saw it, I thought "Isn't this contemporary art!?" That was the end of my luck. Just to be sure, I asked a young fellow collector of classical books nearby about the period. He said, "I can't tell you the details, but it must be Edo." It's hard to say "It must be Edo" to an ephemera dealer that mainly deals in modern and contemporary times. It's cool.

This is a very rough definition, but ephemera can be 1) something that is beautiful or interesting, 2) something that has important meaning, or 3) something that is a combination of both.

In a Western antiques store, for example, if it is a "nice greeting card," reason ① is enough to qualify it for sale. However, once it is moved to a secondhand bookstore, the content and meaning of the card, such as "what year is it for?" become an issue, which is strange. Traditional secondhand bookstores place more importance on reason ② than reason ①.

As a secondhand book store owner who deals in ephemera, I am even stricter in what I look for, and I want level 3, that is, "ephemera that is both beautiful and meaningful." Or rather, I feel like that is what is required.

This is really tough. It's not something that just rolls around. In addition, especially in recent years when most things give me a sense of déjà vu, I've been hit with a situation where I can't find anything to buy no matter how many times I go to the market. In a word, I'm stuck. At times like this, I just want to buy something that I think looks good and that I want, without any logic, just based on my intuition.

The 12 portraits of 12 people that I am showing you today are ones that I happened to come across in the market just when I had finally reached the final decision.

Now that I had it for myself without knowing anything other than that "Edo exists," all I had to do was confront the item, talk to it, and explore how much I could explain.

Now, let's take a closer look.
The first thing that is clear is that all 12 pieces do not depict any flowers, landscapes, or inscriptions, and instead focus on depicting people. The simple composition and flat expression, as if the figures were cut out and placed on the background color, result in an impression that is closer to that of contemporary art and modern design.

When it comes to paintings that consist of figures alone, the first thing that comes to mind is a painting of immortal poets. We were able to confirm that there are masterpieces of paintings of immortal poets that do not have inscriptions, but we were unable to identify the 12 people. Therefore, we must avoid asserting that they are paintings of immortal poets. However, since there are no famous paintings of immortal poets or works that are similar in style to the artist, we can rather eliminate the suspicion that they are fakes.

Of course, the expressions are monotonous and somewhat demure, incomparable to the world-famous paintings of immortal poets, but delicate brushwork can be seen in the facial expressions of the figures and the lines of the hair. However, the hair of the two female figures is depicted with a stiff linework not seen in other images, and the impression given by the way the pigment is applied suggests that they may have been painted over. It is possible that different artists were responsible for the male and female figures, or that they were painted together.

All 12 pieces are the same size, 21cm in height and 18cm in width. As they are all the same size and made of the same paper, I assumed they were all "byobu-hagashi" (folding screens), and so they were probably originally drawn on the same paper. Upon investigation, I found that the regulations for paper used in the Muromachi period stated that "large shikishi" was 19.4cm in height and 17cm in width, and "small shikishi" was 18.2cm in height and 16.1cm in width, so it seems likely that they were drawn on "small shikishi," which is the closest size. Incidentally, the "small shikishi" currently in circulation is even closer in size, at 21.2cm in height and 18.2cm in width.

And that's all we can speculate about.

The search for the seal, which I had hoped would help me identify the artist, ended in vain. As usual, I am unable to say anything about the people depicted. I cannot narrow down the era, and these are all anonymous ephemera. Looking closely, each of the 12 pieces has its own merits and flaws. Nevertheless, they have been painstakingly repaired, and they have continued to exist in this world for much longer than any human life.

Perhaps this fact itself speaks most eloquently about the appeal of these 12 pieces.

Masago Sato's One Point Lesson

Nowadays, shikishi is mainly used for messages and signatures, but its history is long, and the Encyclopedia of Japan states that "originally it was used to mean dyed paper in general, as opposed to white paper, and was already seen in the Shosoin documents from the Nara period, and is still preserved in the Shosoin." The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book also contain examples of "white shikishi," meaning colored paper. Meanwhile, from the mid-Heian period to the Kamakura period, a form called "shikishi-gata" came to be used for writing poetry related to landscape paintings on shoji screens and folding screens, and landscape paintings and portraits on temple murals and door paintings, and this repurposing of shikishi as writing paper is said to be the origin of the current style.
Teikoku Databank ArchivesThe world connected by colored paper" Excerpt from

Shikishi, used as writing paper for waka poetry, began to be widely used during the Muromachi period. Around that time, the dimensions of shikishi were gradually decided, and the format was also established. Large shikishi was about 19.4cm long and 17cm wide. Small shikishi was 18.2cm long and 16.1cm wide, and detailed rules were set for the format, such as how to distribute the poems and, if an ancient poem was to be written, to include the name of the author. The most commonly used shikishi was the Thirty-six Immortal Poets, in which each of the thirty-six poets' best poems was written on one sheet of paper, and the thirty-six sheets were pasted onto a folding screen, or the sheets were divided into two parts in a poetry-matching style and pasted onto a pair of folding screens. In the Edo period, Hon'ami Koetsu produced gorgeous shikishi at Suminokura Soan's workshop in Saga, and these have been passed down to the present day in the "Sagahon" format.
Shikishi ya "The History of Shikishi" Summary

Text by Masago Sato