Anonymous, Moon over Musashi Moor, Edo period, early 17th century | 武蔵野図屏風　江戸時代前期　17世紀初頭

Autumn grasses and flowers rise from a malachite green ground. Plumes of miscanthus (susuki) echo the scalloped form of the golden clouds above, while dianthus, bellflower, bush clover and mugwort are interspersed among the tall grasses. The moon appears faintly through the foliage, rendered in silver leaf; scattered silver flecks throughout the grasses suggest the night sky glimpsed through the verdure, with sky, cloud, moon and earth appearing to merge into a single continuous field.

Musashino, the plain once extending across the Kanto region southwest of present-day Edo, is counted among the classical meisho, or ‘famous places’ of Japanese poetry and painting, celebrated since antiquity for its expanse of open grassland and mentioned as early as the Man'yoshu [lit. Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves]. The theme was given its most famous literary treatment in Chapter 12 of the tenth-century Tale of Ise (Ise monogatari), in which a fleeing woman, hidden with her lover among the grasses of Musashino, begs the pursuing governor: “Please don’t burn, / don’t burn, the grasses/ of the Musashi Plain. My beloved hides here, / and I do, too.”¹

The association with Musashi Moor and the moon became a recurring poetic convention. It is thought that the tradition began in a poem by Minamoto no Michikata (1189-1238):

The plains of Musashi

have no mountain peaks

into which the moon can slip,

as white clouds enshroud

spears of plume grasses.²

Musashino wa

tsuki no irubeki

mine mo nashi

obana ga sue ni

kakaru shirakumo

Fujiwara no Yoshitsune (1169-1206) also writes in the Shin kokin wakashu [New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern]:

my destination

and the sky become one on

Musashi Moor

where from distant field grasses

there emerges bright moonlight.³

yukusuwe ha

sora mo hitotsu no

Musashino ni

kusa no hara yori

idzuru tsukikage

For comparison, there is another pair of screens depicting Musashi Moor and Mount Fuji in the collection of the Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo, go to:

https://www.suntory.com/sma/collection/gallery/detail?lang=en&id=543

1. Translated in Peter MacMillan, The Tales of Ise, London, 2016, p. 21.

2. Translated by John T. Carpenter in "The Plains of Musashi", The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET), accession no. 67.235, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45262

3. Translated by Laurel Rasplica Rodd in Shinkokinshu: New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Leiden, 2015), p. 181, no. 422.

秋日草花自孔雀石般的翠綠大地上生長綻放。芒草的羽狀花穗與上方金雲的扇貝狀輪廓遙相呼應，石竹、桔梗、萩草與艾草交織散落於高聳的草叢間。以銀箔渲染的明月透過葉隙若隱若現；草叢中散落的銀箔碎片暗示著透過翠綠植被瞥見的夜空，使天、雲、月、地彷彿融為一片綿延不絕的景象。

武藏野，這片曾經橫跨現今江戶（東京）西南方關東地區的平原，被列為日本詩畫中經典的「名所」勝地，自古即以廣袤無垠的草地聞名，早於《萬葉集》中便有記載。此主題在十世紀《伊勢物語》第十二段中獲得了最著名的文學描繪：一名與愛人一同藏身於武藏野草叢中的私奔女子，懇求追捕的國司：「（漢譯）武藏野的草啊，今日請不要點燃。我的愛人隱藏於此，我也藏身其中。」¹

武藏野與明月的連結成為了詩歌中反覆出現的傳統。一般認為，此傳統始於源通方（1189–1238年）的一首和歌：

（漢譯大意）

武藏野廣袤無垠，

未見山峰

可讓明月隱沒，

唯見白雲繚繞

芒草之巔。²

藤原良經（1169–1206年）在《新古今和歌集》中亦寫道：

（漢譯大意）

前路茫茫，

與天際融為一體，

在武藏野，

從遠方草野間

升起皎潔月光。³

資作比較，東京三得利美術館藏有另一對描繪武藏野與富士山的屏風，詳見：

https://www.suntory.com/sma/collection/gallery/detail?lang=en&id=543