Light Coloured Painting of the Ten Perfections on Paper (by

Jugizu: Ten Pleasures Painted by Yosa Buson

Each painting in this National Treasure album measures roughly 18 centimeters on a side, about the size of an adult's open hand. Yosa Buson (1716-1784), the haiku master who was also one of the finest painters of eighteenth-century Japan, completed the ten leaves in 1771, when he was fifty-six years old. The album is known as Jugizu, the "Ten Pleasures," and it depicts the changing moods of nature around a mountain villa: spring and summer, autumn and winter, dawn and dusk, clear skies, wind, shade, and rain.

The work was never meant to stand alone. It forms one half of a famous pair called Juben Jugizu, the "Ten Conveniences and Ten Pleasures." The other half, an album of ten scenes by Ike no Taiga (1723-1776), shows the practical comforts of life in the same secluded villa. Both albums were designated National Treasures on June 9, 1951, and both belong to the Kawabata Yasunari Memorial Foundation in Kanagawa Prefecture, the organization that preserves the collection of Japan's first Nobel laureate in literature.

The subject came from China. Li Yu (1611-1680), a writer of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, built a retreat called Yi Garden at the foot of a mountain. When visitors suggested that such a remote place must be inconvenient, he answered with a set of poems praising ten conveniences of his rustic life and a further series on the pleasures of nature there. A century later in Japan, these verses were handed to two painters in Kyoto, each asked to interpret one half of the poet's answer.

Why the Album Became a National Treasure

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registers the album under the formal title Shihon Tansai Jugizu, meaning "Ten Pleasures, light colors on paper, by Yosa Buson." It was first designated an Important Cultural Property on April 30, 1935, then elevated to National Treasure status in 1951 together with Taiga's companion album. One leaf, Gifu (Pleasure of Wind), carries a dated inscription from the eighth month of Meiwa 8, which corresponds to 1771 and anchors the entire pair in time.

The designation recognizes the work as a summit of Japanese literati painting, the style known as nanga or bunjinga that drew on Chinese scholar-painter ideals. The commission is traditionally attributed to Shimosato Gakkai (1742-1790), a wealthy sake brewer of Narumi in Owari Province, present-day Aichi Prefecture. He is said to have asked the two most celebrated literati painters of the day, both working in Kyoto, to take on the same poetic source. Taiga was forty-nine, Buson fifty-six. The result reads almost like a friendly contest between two mature masters at the height of their powers.

Their approaches diverge in revealing ways. Taiga filled his ten scenes with human activity: fishing from a window, drawing water, tending crops. Buson turned his attention outward, to weather and light. In his leaves the human figures shrink, and what changes from page to page is the air itself. Art historians often describe the pairing as a dialogue between human life and the natural world, conducted across twenty small sheets of paper.

A note on the dated leaf: the national database records the inscription on a leaf written with a slightly different first character, and published sources identify it as Gifu, the wind scene. The album as a whole is in light colors and ink on paper, bound in the format of a folding picture album.

What to Look For

The ten leaves are titled Gishun (spring), Gika (summer), Gishu (autumn), Gito (winter), Gigyo (dawn), Giban (evening), Gisei (clear weather), Gifu (wind), Giin (shade), and Giu (rain). Together they form a catalogue of atmospheres rather than places. The villa appears again and again, but the real subject is how the same spot feels under different skies.

Buson worked here at an intentionally small scale. Where his large screen paintings can be sweeping, these leaves reward viewing from thirty centimeters away. Look at how he renders rain with pale diagonal washes rather than drawn lines, or how a single lamp-lit window carries the entire mood of an evening scene. The brushwork is loose but never careless. A few strokes establish a thatched roof, a bamboo grove, a figure leaning on a railing to watch the weather.

Comparing the two albums is half the pleasure when both are shown together. Taiga's line is rounded, rhythmic, almost playful. Buson's touch is drier and more atmospheric, closer in spirit to his haiku, where a small observation opens onto a season. Critics have argued over which painter prevailed ever since the albums became famous. The novelist Shiga Naoya, who saw the pair at a Taisho-era exhibition, admitted in print that he responded to Taiga's leaves more readily than to Buson's. Other viewers have reached the opposite verdict. Standing before the originals, you are invited to judge for yourself.

One practical point shapes every encounter with this work. Because the paintings are bound as an album, only one opening can be displayed at a time. Museums therefore turn the pages during an exhibition run, and seeing all ten leaves can take multiple visits, sometimes spread over years. Devoted viewers in Japan treat completing the set as a long-term project.

The Kawabata Connection and Where to See It

The album's modern history is bound up with Kawabata Yasunari (1899-1972), author of Snow Country and winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature. Kawabata was a serious collector of art. Shortly after the Second World War, money he had borrowed to buy a house went instead to the purchase of Juben Jugizu when the albums unexpectedly came on the market. According to his wife Hideko, he had long said that if he could ever own this work, he could die content. The albums have remained with the Kawabata Yasunari Memorial Foundation ever since, alongside another National Treasure from his collection, Uragami Gyokudo's Toun Shisetsu landscape.

There is no permanent gallery where the album hangs year-round. The foundation, based in Kamakura where Kawabata lived for decades, lends the work to museum exhibitions every few years. Recent venues have included major shows of literati painting and exhibitions devoted to Kawabata's collection at museums in Tokyo, Nagoya, Himeji, and elsewhere. Checking exhibition announcements is essential before planning a trip; the albums draw long lines whenever they appear.

A visit to Kamakura itself pairs naturally with an interest in this work. The old capital an hour south of Tokyo is where Kawabata wrote some of his best-known fiction, and the Hase and Yuigahama districts he knew retain their temple-lined lanes, the Great Buddha of Kotoku-in, and views over Sagami Bay. Literary pilgrims can also visit the Kamakura Museum of Literature, which documents the circle of writers who settled in the city.