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

calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

. She was a student of the arts in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

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

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

, including

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

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. Early life (1579–1593) Tokugawa Hidetada was born to Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Lady Saigō on May ...

, 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 , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, 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 information 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, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

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, Shinano to the east, and Ise, Mikawa, and Owari to the south. Its abbreviated fo ...

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

Noto province was a Provinces of Japan, 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 Province, E ...

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

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

'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 (alternatively written lady in waiting) or court lady is a female personal assistant at a Royal court, court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking nobility, noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was o ...

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, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

and

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

tea ceremony Tea ceremony is a ritualized practice of making and serving tea (茶 ''cha'') in East Asia practiced in the Sinosphere. The original term from China (), literally translated as either "''way of tea''", "''etiquette for tea or tea rite''",Heiss, M ...

). 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), also known as Lady Chacha (茶々), was a Japanese historical figure in the late Sengoku period. She was the concubine and the second wife of Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi. As the mother of his son and successor ...

. Some accounts declare that she served in the retinue of

Tokugawa Masako , also known as Kazu-ko, was empress consort of Japan as the wife of Emperor Go-Mizunoo. Through collaboration with her parents, Oeyo and Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, she was a prominent and influential figure within the politics and culture of the E ...

, the chief consort of

Emperor Go-Mizunoo , posthumously honored as , was the 108th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional List of Emperors of Japan, order of succession. Go-Mizunoo's reign spanned the years from 1611 through 1629, and he was the first emperor to reign entirely d ...

and mother of Empress Meishō. 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 to ...

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 ...

and

Matsushiro domain file:松代城(海津城) Matsushiro castle 2011.1.1 - panoramio (2).jpg, 300px, Matsushiro Castle file:Ryukoji05.JPG, Part of the Matsushiro domain's Edo estate, relocated to Kamakura and used as a hall at Ryuko-ji Temple was a Han (Japan), feud ...

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 Yu ...

. 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 ...

, 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 is a classic work of Japanese literature written by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu around the peak of the Heian period, in the early 11th century. It is one of history's first novels, the first by a woman to have wo ...

'' 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 influe ...

. Otsū wrote mainly in

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

, interspersed with extravagant

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, 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 and are ...

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 (; from Chinese: '' Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka ph ...

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, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

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

References

{{authority control 1631 deaths 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 Women of the Sengoku period People of the Azuchi–Momoyama period People of the Edo period

Biography

Known works

See also

References