Yakaku Teikinsho. Secret Teachings of the Sesonji School of Calligraphy

Abstract

Y rakaku Teikinsho I ca 1170-1175, is Japan's oldest extant calligraphic treatise.' Less inspired than the later treatises Saiyosho s tjk, ca 1180-1200, and Jubokusho A 1352, it is the work of a poorly regarded mediocrity, Fujiwara Koreyuki Ogf4, 1123?-1175, the sixth head of the Sesonji t#itf school of calligraphy. But mediocrity is sometimes the truest barometer of an age. Because Koreyuki concentrated on surface conventions, his work is now one of our only ways of knowing what these conventions once were. As a result, Yakaku Teikinsho is the seminal statement of the late-Heian and early-Kamakura transition, when traditional arts such as poetry and calligraphy began the process of codification into hereditary schools. Koreyuki came from a minor branch of the Fujiwara family and he never rose above the fourth or fifth rank.2 But his position as court calligrapher, descended from the founder of the Sesonji school, Fujiwara Yukinari MlqlWj )A, 972-1027, qualified him to serve as the official scribe for high-ranking aristocrats and members of the imperial family.3 In this capacity he gained a familiarity with court ritual that he displays in Yakaku Teikinsho, and his text describes the conventions and etiquette of the court calligrapher as defined by the Sesonji school. Koreyuki's mastery of this knowledge ensured his family's survival, but his abilities sometimes failed him. When he prepared official documents for Chancellor Fujiwara Motozane ? t,T 1143-1166, for instance, he