First Companion of the Writing Chamber

For the next two Mondays we are honored to feature pieces from the collection of Indiana University Art Museum. Today we share this magnificent Japanese print. Enjoy! This exquisite print, originally one of a set of eight collectively entitled Four Companions of the Writing Chamber, was commissioned by the Ichiyō Poetry Circle. The phrase “four companions” refers to paper, ink, the stone for grinding ink, and brush, in other words, the essential equipment for writing. This print, “Ink,” depicts the Japanese poet Ono no Komachi, who was active in the mid-ninth century. This scene represents the climactic moment of a story dramatized in the Noh play Sōshi Arai Komachi (which translates as Komachi Washing the Book but is sometimes called Komachi Clears Her Name) attributed to the playwright Zeami (ca. 1364–ca. 1443). According to the story, Ono no Komachi and the courtier Ōtomo Kuronushi are pitted against each other in a poetry contest. Kuronushi decides to spy on Komachi and plots to discredit her. Hearing her recite her poem he commits it to memory, hurries back to his room, and inscribes Komachi’s poem in his copy of the eighth-century poetry anthology, the Manyōshū. When Komachi recites her poem at the competition Kuronushi accuses her of plagiarism and produces his copy of the Manyōshū as proof. Komachi, bewildered, looks at the text and sees the poem she has just written. She notices, however, that the calligraphy is different from that of the other poems on the page and the ink not quite dry. She says that she wishes she could wash the lines away—her shame erased and the words gone. Komachi requests a basin of water. When she dips the book in water the ink, still wet, begins to dissolve. Komachi’s reputation is saved.