Ono Otsū (小野お通, 1559 or 1568 – 1631), also known as Ono no Ozū, was a Japanese noblewoman,

calligrapher Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

. She was a student of the arts in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, studying painting, calligraphy, music, chanting, and poetry. Her work was noticed by members of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, including

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

and

Tokugawa Hidetada was the second ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty, who ruled from 1605 until his abdication in 1623. He was the third son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate. Early life (1579–1593) Tokugawa Hidetada was bo ...

, and she was often hired by them to teach members of their court. Because she was the author of works that impacted Japanese art during the Azuchi-Momoyama and

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, and served several prominent figures, Otsū was proclaimed one of the leading female calligraphers of premodern Japan.

Biography

Ono Otsū was born in 1559 into a noble samurai family, but there is not much informations about her early life. According to some sources, Ono Masahide, an ally of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

and owner of a fiefdom in

Mino province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today southern Gifu Prefecture. Mino was bordered by Ōmi to the west, Echizen and Hida to the north, and Shinano to the east, and Ise, Mikawa, and Owari to the south. Its abbreviat ...

, would take care of Ono Otsū after the death of her father. She may have married a daimyo of

Noto province was a province of Japan in the area that is today the northern part of Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan, including the Noto Peninsula (''Noto-hantō'') which is surrounded by the Sea of Japan. Noto bordered on Etchū and Kaga provinces to the so ...

and then relocated to Kyoto following the death of her husband in battle. In the capital, she studied arts, including waka composition with the nobleman

Kujō Tanemichi , was a '' kugyō'' or Japanese court noble and classic scholar of the Muromachi period (1336–1573). He was the biological son of regent Hisatsune and Sanjōnishi Yasuko, eldest daughter of (1455–1537), the leading ''waka'' master, tea expert ...

(1507–1594) and was subsequently welcomed into aristocratic and high-ranking military circles. Learned writing from Kanoe Nobutada, a member of the

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

's court in Kyoto, one of the Three Calligraphers of Konoe. She worked throughout her life as a

lady-in-waiting A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman but of lower rank than the woman to whom sh ...

in the courts of families of important leaders such as

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

and

. Skilled in poetry, she also tried her hand at calligraphy, painting, music, and cha no yu (

tea ceremony An East Asian tea ceremony, or ''Chádào'' (), or ''Dado'' ( ko, 다도 (茶道)), is a ceremonially ritualized form of making tea (茶 ''cha'') practiced in East Asia by the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. The tea ceremony (), literally transla ...

). She became famous for her artistic talent and taught both poetry and calligraphy at the various courts. During her life, she was said to have served Fujiwara no ''Haruko'' ( Emperor Go-Yōzei's mother), Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Kodai-in (Nene),

Yodo-dono or (1569 – June 4, 1615) was a prominently placed figure in the late-Sengoku period. She was the daughter of Oichi and sister of Ohatsu and Oeyo. She was a concubine and second wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was then the most powerful man ...

. Some accounts even declare that she served in the retinue of

Tokugawa Masako , also known as Kazu-ko, was the Empress consort of Japan as wife of Emperor Go-Mizunoo. She was a prominent and influential figure the Imperial-shogunate ties and relations, because of her collaboration with her parents Oeyo and Tokugawa Hidetad ...

, the chief consort of

Emperor Go-Mizunoo was the 108th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Go-Mizunoo's reign spanned the years from 1611 through 1629, and was the first emperor to reign entirely during the Edo period. This 17th-century sovereign was n ...

and mother of

Empress Meishō was the 109th monarch of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')明正天皇 (108)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession.Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan'', p. 115. Her reign lasted from 1629 ...

. She was also said to be close to the

daimyo were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally ...

Ueda Domain Ueda Castle, administrative centre of Ueda Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shinano Province, Honshū. The domain was centered at Ueda Castle, located in what is now part of the city o ...

and

Matsushiro domain 300px, Matsushiro Castle Part of the Matsushiro domain's Edo estate, relocated to Kamakura and used as a hall at Ryuko-ji Temple was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shinano Province, Hon ...

Sanada Nobuyuki was a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku period. He was the son of ''daimyō'' Sanada Masayuki and the older brother of Sanada Yukimura. Early life He was the first son of Sanada Masayuki and his wife, Kansho-in. His younger brother was Sanada Yuk ...

. Otsū apparently married a member of the

Toyotomi clan The was a Japanese clan that ruled over the Japanese before the Edo period. Unity and conflict The most influential figure within the Toyotomi was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the three "unifiers of Japan". Oda Nobunaga was another primary un ...

, but they divorced due to her husband's alcoholism. After this, she became a tutor for a noblewoman.

Known works

Celebrated above all as a calligrapher, Ono Otsū was also important for her paintings in which she placed a calligraphic inscription on the image. Her style of calligraphy marked by ornamental decorations became a great inspiration for women of the highest castes of the

. She was thought to be the author of the Joruri Monogatari, the precursor to Joruri. She created distinctive style calligraphy, decorated sheets of decorated paper in a pair of albums with scenes from '' The Tale of Genji'' painted by an anonymous artist from the

Tosa school of Japanese painting was founded in the early Muromachi period (14th–15th centuries),,p.988 and was devoted to ''yamato-e'', paintings specializing in subject matter and techniques derived from ancient Japanese art, as opposed to schools influ ...

. Otsū wrote mainly in

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

, interspersed with extravagant

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

for poetically evocative words. The variations, sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic, in the weight of the brushstrokes and the radical spacing between the characters and groups of characters are hallmarks of her style. Otsū also demonstrated her mastery of the “scattered writing” technique, by which she skillfully placed the poem's records on the page and sometimes positioned the lines of the poem out of sequence. She was also known for her paintings of

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

subjects in monochrome ink in the traditional style. Selections of her calligraphy are in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, including a 1624 piece known as ''Hotei with a child''.

References

{{authority control 1631 deaths Japanese calligraphers Japanese poets Japanese women poets Year of birth uncertain Japanese ladies-in-waiting 16th-century Japanese calligraphers 17th-century Japanese calligraphers 16th-century Japanese women writers 17th-century Japanese women writers 16th-century Japanese poets 17th-century Japanese poets 16th-century Japanese painters 17th-century Japanese painters Women calligraphers 16th-century women artists 17th-century women artists

Biography

Known works

See also

References