Rabbit and Waves (ウサギと波)

Designer: Unknown | Carver: Noriko Kawasaki | Printer: Yoko Ishikawa

Paper size: 11cm by 15cm | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [HC] ? ( Change currency: $ / £ / € )

Price: $ 40.00£ 32.25€ 36.75

   

Description: The idea for this print came from a little book in our Mokuhankan Collection - a selection of designs based on the old Tale of Genji. Some were presented for painting on the inside of shells, a pastime back in the day, and others were based on the ‘Genji Ko’, shapes representing the various scents associated with the novel.

Included was this little rabbit among dancing waves, and I ‘clipped’ it from the surroundings, formatted it as you see here, and sent it to our craftspeople for production. I then thought no more about it, but some of the viewers of our Twitch livestreams soon brought me up-to-date when they saw the finished print. They suggested to me that rather than a reference to the Genji story, this image much more closely fits another old tale - the Noh play Chikubu-shima.

That story is much too long to synopsize here, but a reading of the script finds this passage spoken by the reciter: We are on the lake in Ohmi Province. The mountains near the coves in the lake seem to be in the first flush of spring ... When the moon floats high in the sky above the lake, will the rabbit on the moon jump on the wave? How wonderful is the view of the lake!

When we remember that the Japanese have always seen the topography on the moon as representing a rabbit, to imagine this creature coming to life in the reflection of the moon in the ripples on the water is no stretch at all.

Our team has done a wonderful job bringing it to life. All that is left is for you to enjoy this image of the moon rippling in the waves!

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