1765

Enjoying the Moon in a Riverside Cottage

Japanese, 1723 - 1776

Taiga used dark ink in this sketch of two men in a cottage. A lone pine reaches upward into the cloudless expanse of the sky. The moon is not visible, unless the round seal stamped on the upper left is Taiga's playful reference to it. The verse he chose is by the famed Chinese writer Bo Juyi (772-846):

A Friend Visits at Night
Beneath the eaves, on mat in pure breeze;
Below the pines, a cup in moonlight:
The joys of seclusion are just this way,
And even better now a friend's in sight!