[The water-fowl design, called midsu tori.]
There are many books upon the subject of signing and authenticating a painting. Two well-known works are “GWA JO YO RYAKU” and “DAI GA SHI SAN.” In China literary men often add descriptive matter to their paintings, writing prominently thereon: “In a dream last night I witnessed the scene I here attempt to reproduce,” or “On a boating excursion we saw this pine tree shading the banks of the river.” Such additions to the picture enable the artist to exhibit his skill as an expert writer and are considered to heighten the general effect. Often original poetry takes the place of prose. The year, month and day will be added, followed by the signature of the writer, with some self-depreciatory term, such as “fisherman of the North Sea,” “mountain wood-chopper” or “hermit dwelling amid the clouds and rocks.” Such signature, with one or more seals scattered over the face of the work, is in art called RAKKWAN, signifying “completed.”
In Japan a somewhat different way of signing prevails. The artist’s signature with his seal under it is appended to the painting, not in a conspicuous but in the least prominent part of it.
Painters of the Tosa, Fujiwara, Sumiyoshi and Kasuga schools in signing their work first wrote above their signatures their office and rank, _e. g.,_ Unemi no Kami or Shikibu Gondai no Kami in the square or round Chinese characters.
The Kano artists signed their names in round characters (GYO SHO) and did not add their secular rank or office but wrote before their signatures their Buddhist titles; thus, HOGAN Motonobu, HO KYO Naganobu, HOIN Tsunenobu. In the Maruyama period all titles and rank were omitted and simply the name _(namae)_ or the _nom de plume_ (GO) was written,—thus, Okyo, Goshun, Tessan, Bun Cho—strict attention being paid, however, to executing the Chinese characters for such signatures in both an artistic and strikingly attractive way, whether written in one or another of the three usual forms technically called SHIN, SO, GYO.
The date, NEN GO, preceding the signature upon a painting is often indicated by the use of one of the twelve horary characters (JU NI SHI) along with one of the ten calendar signs (JU RAN). These, in orderly arrangement, comprehend a cycle of sixty years; in other words, they are never united the same way or coincide but once during that period. No artist under sixty should, in signing his work, allude to his age, much less state his years. For him to be able to write seventy-seven before his name is most auspicious—one way of writing _kotobuki,_ the luckiest word in Japanese, being to employ two sevens which, thus compounded, is said to be the SO SHO character for that word. Very young persons are permitted in signing their paintings or writings to add their exact ages up to thirteen.