ST042 Kotoshin Lantern

Snow Treasure

Painting size: 16cm x 23cm

Framing size: 37cm x 45cm

The Kotoji Lantern is a symbol of Kenrokuen Garden and is very famous as an iconic image of Kanazawa. It is said to have been named so because the lantern resembles the "kotoji" (bridges that support the strings of a koto), but the official name is the difficult-to-read characters "Kotoji Lantern". I wonder why. It almost feels like the characters were created when someone decided to stamp a seal on the Kotoji Lantern.

Incidentally, it is said that during the Edo period, the legs of the lantern were symmetrical, but one leg broke during the Meiji era. Instead of repairing it, the broken leg was placed on a stone, resulting in its current form. This unbalanced "beauty of discord" is said to have been favored by the Japanese. This is probably one of the reasons why the Kotoji Lantern became so famous, but I think it wasn't just the lantern itself that made it so popular.

Humans have a field of vision through which they perceive objects with their naked eyes. This field of vision is quite broad, encompassing left, right, up, and down. For example, when you look at your face in a mirror, your gaze is focused solely on your face. While various objects in the bathroom may be within your field of vision, it's as if you're not seeing them.

When one looks at the Kotoji Lantern, it becomes a starting point from which one's vision expands to include the tea house on the pond, the trees visible in the distance, the reflections in the pond, and the sky. In other words, the Kotoji Lantern acts as a catalyst, extracting and imprinting these elements onto the film of one's mind, creating a unique space. A space that unfolds within one's heart. I believe that this is a crucial point that made the Kotoji Lantern famous.

And that's how I drew the picture.