Calligraphy at the Age of Sixty-four, Tōkai Okon

Archive Label 2003:
Okon was a child prodigy who could recite long portions of the Chinese classics and whose signature cursive or grass script was described by the scholar-official and poet Rokudo as being “as free as a dragon’s leap” and by the Sinologist Rai Sanyo as “having the energy of wild horses.” In1826, when she was only ten years old, Okon was summoned to court to display her talents before the emperor. Rokudo, Rai Sanyo and the Confucian scholar Shinozaki Shochiku recorded this event in three scrolls that entered the Spencer Museum in 1985 with Okon’s autobiographical handscroll displayed here.

In this handscroll, Okon describes childhood travels with her father to demonstrate her precocious calligraphy; admonitions from family friends that she give up calligraphy and marry in order to have a happy and secure life; her marriage (at age 16) to a petty bureaucrat; his death; and the poverty of her old age. Despite her adverse circumstances, the controlled vitality of Okon’s mature brushwork is balanced, fresh, and inventive. She used a wide range of ink tones and skillful combinations of wet and dry brushwork to express her ideas and create a vibrant and interesting composition.