The path through Mount Utsu

The subject of this painting comes from The Tales of Ise, a mid-tenth century anthology of stories and poems about a nobleman’s romantic pursuits. In this episode the hero, usually identified as the poet Ariwara Narihira (825–880), is on a journey through the mountains. While on a road described as “overgrown with ivy vines and maples,” he encounters a Buddhist monk traveling in the opposite direction. He asks the monk to deliver this poem to a woman he left behind in the capital:

Beside Mt. Utsu
In Suruga
I can see you
Neither waking
Nor, alas, even in my dreams.

suruganaru
Utsunoyamabe no
utsutsu ni mo
yume ni mo hito ni
awanunarikeri

—Translation by Helen McCullough

The artist chose to convey the mystery of this brief encounter by isolating the nobleman between rounded hills, where he gazes back at the monk’s retreating figure. On the hillside red ivy provides a hint of the fall season.