Nature and the Seasons

Japanese art and poetry have always been organised by the seasons. A painting, a poem or a garden is meant to belong to a particular moment of the year, and much of its meaning comes from knowing which. Every design in the Nature collection begins from that calendar.

The characters: 自然

自 (shi): self.
然 (zen): so, thus.

Together, shizen is “what is so of itself”: the world as it is, without anyone making it.

Flower, bird, wind and moon

An old phrase sums up the subjects of Japanese art: kachō fūgetsu, 花鳥風月, flower, bird, wind and moon. It stands for the beauty of the natural world, and for the kind of person who takes the time to notice it.

A word for every season

Every haiku is anchored by a seasonal word, kigo, that places it in the year: cherry blossoms for spring, fireflies for summer, the moon for autumn, the winter crow for winter. Poets keep almanacs of these words, saijiki, thousands of them, each carrying its season with it.

Seventy-two seasons

The old calendar divides the year far more finely than into four. Twenty-four solar terms, sekki, each split again into three, give seventy-two micro-seasons, kō, of about five days each. Every one has a name drawn from what is happening outside, such as the first wild geese arriving in autumn. In the late seventeenth century, the astronomer Shibukawa Harumi rewrote these names to follow Japan’s own seasons.

The feeling for passing things

Behind all of it sits mono no aware, the gentle sadness of knowing that beautiful things pass. It is why the cherry blossom, at its best for a few days, is loved above every other flower, and why so much of Japanese art is set at the moment something is about to change.

In the collection

Autumn

Higanbana 彼岸花, the red spider lily, blooming in the week of the autumn equinox.
Tsuki 月, the moon, and the autumn night of moon-viewing.
Tonbo 蜻蛉, the dragonfly, and the red dragonflies of the autumn fields.

Summer

Ga 蛾, the moth, and the pale ōmizuao of summer nights.
Koi 鯉, the carp, and the streamers of Children’s Day.

Winter and the New Year

Kuromatsu 黒松, the black pine, evergreen through winter and set at every gate at New Year.
Tancho 丹頂, the red-crowned crane, and the winter dance on the snowfields of Hokkaido.

Through the year

Kaze 風, the wind, and a name for every wind of the year.
Iwa 岩, the rock, from sacred stones to the gardens of Zen temples.