The Music of the Moon
Does the moon speak? Does the moon sing?
The moon in Japanese culture may not physically speak but it does metaphorically “speak” as a physical expression of the self in music creation. The moon was often a motif used in waka 和歌 poems, of which many were sung aloud, to express emotions. Tales and legends of old Japan, such as The Tale of Heike, depict several warriors whose flute playing under the moon demonstrated their strength and cultural refinement. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s Moon of the Moor embodies this association of the moon with music and high culture. However, the moon was also significant as a subject and symbol in folk music, as reflected in Helen Hyde’s Songs of the Japanese Children. While these images depict different aspects of traditional Japanese music as associated with the moon to separate audiences, they all pictorialize the transmission of the music of the moon in Japanese culture.
Rabbit in the Moon, from the album Songs of the Japanese Children
Watercolor on paper, 1901
Ralph and Barbara Voorhees American Art Fund
Helen Hyde (1868-1919) was known for her Japonism prints and drawings, inspired by her direct experience living in Japan. Several of her illustrations include depictions of the moon, such as the works for her 1901 proposed album Songs of the Japanese Children (see also Familial Relationships and the Moon section). Some Japonism influences noticeable in these watercolors are the unconventional cropping and placement of scenic structures. In Rabbit in the Moon the tree is placed so that you don’t see the full figure of it, and the branches also cover the rabbit and moon, making its full appearance incomplete. The ground where the child is walking is also depicted ambiguously. In Lady Moon the music seems to serve this purpose by blocking out the procession of women as well as the moon in the top right corner. Similar artistic details of abruptly cut out scenery can also be observed in Japanese ukiyo-e prints from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo by Andō Hiroshige (1857).
The song “Rabbit in the Moon” derives from the Japanese children’s song “Usagi,” a dialogue between the singer and a rabbit. The singer asks the rabbit what it’s looking at as it leaps into the night, and the rabbit replies that it is gazing at the full moon on a jyūgo-ya 十五夜 (the fifteenth night of a lunar month). The term jyūgo-ya in the lyrics can also refer to tsukimi 月見, a mid-Autumn festival during September or October that celebrates the harvest moon and praying for a good harvest. The connection between the rabbit and the moon originates from a Buddhist tale where a rabbit’s act of charity was honored by a heavenly figure by depicting the rabbit on the moon’s surface. The song is suggestive of the moon’s divinity and teaches children the importance of traditions such as tsukimi (LiMarzi).
In Hyde’s imagining of “Rabbit in the Moon,” a young child is gazing up at the rabbit on the top left corner leaping into the full, harvest moon covered by tree branches. While the luminousness of the moon is still portrayed with the rabbit lifted into the sky and into the hazy moon, Hyde may have focused on a more simple interpretation of the song as this innocent dialogue between the child and rabbit, and essentially the moon.
Lady Moon, from the album Songs of the Japanese Children
Watercolor on paper, 1901
Ralph and Barbara Voorhees American Art Fund
This work features a song titled as “Lady Moon.” The song originates from the Japanese folk song “Otsuki-san Ikutsu (Mistress Moon How Old Are You?).” There are several interpretations to this song, including one as a conversation between the moon and a woman with a child. The word “O-man” could mean either “you” or the name of a mother or nanny, indicating a conversation between the singer and the moon (Mukasa, 27). In the context of Hyde’s translation of the lyrics, the term can also be a pun on “Oh moon.” In the illustration surrounding the music sheet, a woman carrying a child can be seen on the right side. The child is pointing at the moon hidden on the top right corner of the music sheet, creating a heart-to-heart moment between the mystic, hidden moon and child.
Along with the music sheet, the work also depicts dogs carrying drums and a young girl drumming. Drums are important in Japanese culture as they play an important role in making music for matsuri 祭り(festival) and for native Shinto religious rituals. As Shinto is an animistic religion, everything has a soul and thus can be a kami 神 (god). Included in this pantheon of kami are also national heroes, historical figures, and ancestors. Angela Hondru writes that in Japan, “Matsuri can be looked upon as the art through which the human – deity relationship is preserved lively and harmonious” (48). While every matsuri has its own traditions and also varies depending on the locality, the drums are broadly used as a means to call the kami to the matsuri, linking a belief that the drum can connect humans to the world of the kami, of which the kami of the harvest moon are a part of (Moriarty 100).
The Moon of the Moor, from the series One Hundred Aspects of the Moon
Color woodcut, 1888
Gift of Donald and Ann McPhail
Moon on the Moor illustrates the story of how, on a chilly fall night, a robber named Hakamadare 袴垂 spots Fujiwara no Yasumasa 藤原保昌 (958-1036), the governor of Settsu Province and a brave warrior, and decides to rob him of his clothes as winter approaches. However Hakamadare, who is unaware of Yasumasa’s identity, hesitates as he is spooked by Yasumasa’s calm demeanor and skillful flute playing. As the tune of the flute is not described in detail in the text of the story, it is up to the reader and the viewer to determine what kind of music might accompany a fall night in which the “moon [is] drowned in cloud”(Olsen 163). The print engages in the psychological moment of tension, in Yoshitoshi’s signature style, expressed in Hakamadare’s outstretched leg and hand reaching for his sword as he prepares to confront Yasumasa, a snapshot just before the imagined music stops and the action begins.
The composition aligns the viewer with Hakamadare and together we stare in trepidation at Yasumasa’s back. The hazy, clouded moon reflects the way that Hakamadare’s heart is “clouded” by his hesitation and fear and the way that the music has paralyzed him from action. This type of moon also sets up the perfect stage for a mysterious encounter with the “other world” of the kami. As the flute plays an important role in Shinto music as a means of communication with the kami, Yasumasa is considered as one with abilities to access the supernatural, if not becoming supernatural himself. Thus, Hakamadare perceives Yasumasa as otherworldly and shrinks in fear of both the real and imagined persona in front of him.
The moon as depicted in Yoshitoshi’s Moon of the Moor and Helen Hyde’s Songs of Japanese Children reflects the ways in which music and symbolism of the moon were transmitted through Japanese art and Japonism. Rabbit in the Moon teaches children about the significance of the harvest moon through a conversive and illustrative song about a rabbit leaping into the night during a full moon. Lady Moon depicts the tradition of people’s proximity with divine entities through the conversation between the moon and woman and the girl drumming like at matsuri. And finally, Moon on the Moor sings of the quiet refinement of a warrior-flute player and the way that a cloudy moonlit night accompanied by song can invite both gods and devils. All three works visualize different aspects of the moon, reflecting the way that while the moon as an entity remains constant, the significance of the moon changes generation to generation and from perspective to perspective.
Grace Kim (MA ‘22), Izumi Umeda (‘21)
Bibliography
Francis, H. T., and R. A. Neil, trans. The Jātaka: Stories of the Buddha's Former Births. Ed. E. B. Cowell. London: Luzac and, 1897.
Hondru, Angela. "Matsuri- Essence Of Japanese Spirituality," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University. Vol. 9. September, 2014.
LiMarzi, Julia. “Tales From Japan: The Rabbit on the Moon.” Bokksu. www.bokksu.com/blogs/news/japanese-folktale-rabbit-on-the-moon.
Moriarty, Elizabeth. “The Communitarian Aspect of Shinto Matsuri.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 31, no. 2, 1972, pp. 91–140. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1177490. Accessed 4 Dec. 2020.
Mukasa, Shunichi. "謎の発生:「お月さん幾つ」考察." 人文論叢 16 (1999): 25-32.
Olsen, Dale A. “World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power,” University of Illinois Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?dcID=3414376.
