Hirosawa-gire (Fushimi-In Gyoshu) 広沢切（伏見院御集）ヒロサワギレ

Description

Deeply attracted to poetry and an achieved poet and calligrapher himself, Emperor Fushimi (1265-1317) planned to compile a private collection of poems of his own composition (Collection of Emperor Fushimi Poems) but died before it was completed. The draft scroll was later cut into segments and possessed by various owners and one such segment is known as ‘Hirosawa-gire’. It is not clear how the segment was thus named; either it was owned by someone named Hirosawa or it may have something to do with Hirosawa, Kyoto.A characteristic feature of this segment is the use of sukushi paper, which was, so to speak, recycled paper. Sukushi was a grayish paper produced by the paper mill attached to the court department since the Heian Period. The kind of paper was later called usuzumi gami (light ink paper), suiun-shi (water cloud paper) and by a few other names. In order to save precious paper, the Heian Court used recycled sukushi paper even on documents carrying imperial commands. When its use was particularly popular during the Period of Northern and Southern Dynasties, it was referred to as usuzumi-rinji (imperial commands on darkened paper). But Hirosawa-gire written on sukushi paper is quite rare. One can imagine that the emperor was a carefree spirit and picked up any available paper to write down his poems and it is another proof that the ‘Hirosawa-gire’ was authentically rendered by the emperor.