c. 1750

Calligraphy of a Poem by Song Zhiwen

Japanese, 1723 - 1776

Taiga wrote out two lines of five-characters each in a bold mix of grass and running scripts. The brush was heavily inked to write the rounded yet solid characters, and Taiga balanced the thick ink with ample "flying white," a result of split brush hairs. The couplet comes from a long poem by the Chinese poet Song Zhiwen (656?-712):

From blue-green peaks hang last night's rains;
Red gullies drink the cloudless rainbow.