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The Rabbit in the Moon (Tsuki no Usagi)

Once upon a time, an old man dressed as a beggar approached Fox (Kitsune), Monkey (Saru) and Rabbit (Usagi), asking for food. Monkey brought fruit fetched from a tree. Fox brought fish caught in a stream. Rabbit could only find grass, so he asked the beggar to build a fire. Once it was going, Rabbit jumped in, offering himself for food. The old beggar quickly changed to his true form, the Man in the Moon, and rescued Rabbit, saying he deserved a reward for offering the most. The Man in the Moon took Rabbit to live with him in the Moon where he can still be seen today, pounding rice to make mochi (rice cakes).

The story came to Japan from China, who got it from India. It has changed form over the centuries, and even Japan has more than one version.

Fox, Monkey, and Rabbit have long been subjects for Japanese artists and have featured in numerous folk tales. The three netsuke below were all carved in the 19th century. Monkey is holding a peach. Fox, a trickster, is standing, getting ready to transform into a human form. Rabbit is stirring an immortality elixir from a variation of the rabbit on the moon story instead of rice.

Paint artists have used them as painting subjects, too.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839 – 1892)

Yoshitshi's career spanned the last decades of the Edo Period and the first decades of the Modern Period. He was one of the last ukiyo-e artists, attempting to extend the life of the art form as it was dying, being replaced by mass produced photography and lithography. 

Yoshitoshi's series, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, published between 1885 and 1892, includes two subjects related to this week's topic, though they aren't directly about the rabbit in the moon tale. Number 73, published in 1889, features a fight between the Jade Rabbit who lives on the moon and the magically empowered monkey king.

The next print, number 91 in the series printed in 1892, features a fox on the Musashi Plain, an area believed to be inhabited by magical foxes who can transform themselves into humans, often priests or women, to trick people. It is looking at its reflection in water on a foggy night, a step toward transformation.

Ohara Koson (1877 – 1945)

Ohara was a prominent member of the early 20th century shin-hanga movement to restore traditional Japanese subject matter, values, and techniques to Japanese art after most Japanese artists abandoned them in the late 19th century in favor to the newly available Western artistic techniques after the opening of Japan at the end of the Edo Period.

The Year of the Rabbit (Usagi)

2023 is the Year of the Rabbit in the 12-year cyclical Japanese Zodiac.

A person born under this sign is gifted and ambitious.  Other people respect and trust them.  Rabbit people seldom lose their tempers.  When they make a promise, their promise is good.  They’re lucky financially, with an uncanny sense for picking a winner. This makes them good gamblers. (Disclaimer: I will not, however, make up for your gambling losses if you rely on this profile.)

Rabbits and monkeys, being zodiac creatures, don't need to be associated with the moon in order to be of interest to Japanese artists.

Rinpa School

The unknown Rinpa School artist who did this 6-fold rabbit byōbu probably lived a generation after Ogata Kōrin (1658 – 1716), one of the founders of the school. The scene is typical of the same Musashi Plain featured above with the transforming fox.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786 – 1865) -&- Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

Two of the greatest ukiyo-e artists of the late Edo Period, Kunisada is most known for bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful people), and Hiroshige was a noted landscape artist. In a rare collaboration, the two produced A Garden in Snow in 1854, a triptych, with each artist contributing his specialty to the finished product.

Takeuchi Seihō (1864 – 1942)

Nihon-ga (literally, Japanese pictures) was another 20th century movement to restore traditional Japanese values to Japanese art--everything other than prints. Seihō was a major advocate of the movement. Winning awards while still in his late teens, he studied traditional Japanese painting techniques in the the Maruyama-Shijō school. Attending the 1900 Exposition Universelle (a world's fair) in Paris, Seihō studied Western painting. He eventually developed his own blend of Western techniques and Japanese values that became a hallmark of the nihon-ga movement.

The bi-fold byōbu pair below, painted in 1908, joins rabbits and monkeys again.

Japanese Full Moon Viewing

Besides rabbits, this unit began with a story and pictures featuring the moon. In Japan, full moon viewing is a special festival that occurs each year on the 15th day of the eighth month of the traditional Japanese calendar. That date on the modern calendar this year was Saturday, September 10. This popular event, originating in the Heian Period (794 – 1185), is variously known as Jugoya, Tsukimi, or Otsukimi.

Besides, looking at the moon, of course, the festival is celebrated by putting up decorations made of pampas grass (suzuki) and eating special foods like tsukimi dango (rice dumplings).

And of course Japanese artists didn't pass up the opportunity to depict moon viewing parties.

Yōshū Chikanobu (1838 – 1912)

Chikanobu studied with the Kanō school when he was young, but later switched to doing ukiyo-e. Like many ukiyo-e artists, he produced a wide range of subjects. One thing that distinguished him is that he sometimes use historical scenes for subjects. That is the case, sort of, with the print below. It depicts the Emperor Go-Daigo (1288 – 1339) enjoying a moon viewing party at Yoshino Palace. 

Utagawa Kunisada (1786 – 1865)

Here is another Kunisada print, this time showing bijin-ga enjoying a view of the moon (which for some reason they are facing away from). Perhaps that is a food basket that is being prepared for a picnic.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

Hiroshige gets the last word, actually two of them, with prints just featuring the moon without people involved. The first is a print from his series, Famous Views of the Eastern Capital, titled Full Moon at Takanawa (1831)

This last print was produced the following year (1832) depicting the moon seen through leaves, a nice autumn scene.