The surfaces of some of Koetsu's scrolls are printed with mica designs, possibly by Sotatsu, that are invisible except from a certain angle. In the seventeenth century, poem cards, with their mingling of written and painted evocations of nature, were probably sometimes hung on trees, so that these comments on nature could tremble like leaves in the wind. Classical Japanese art asks us constantly to readjust our viewpoint, and the readjustments can be verbal as well as visual. Koetsu was so intent on leaving his thematic options open that in his poem cards he almost invariably chose to set up a mismatch between image and text. It was as if calligraphy and painting were at an angle to one another.
Verdant images accompany autumnal poems.
A poem in which the moon appears is inscribed on a surface that suggests broad daylight. The effect is a little like certain operatic duets in which the singers are aware of one another's moves but are intent on going their own ways. What we have is less a union than a kind of free-form encounter. But mine alone it is to know The wind in the mountain pines. Koetsu's calligraphy here, with alternating thick and thin elements, feels like rain drifting downward against the fuller, upward-flowing forms of clouds and cherry blossoms.