Ever since ancient times, mushi (insects and other small creatures) have appeared in stories and poems in Japan. Insects play many roles. Sometimes they are famous sidekicks assisting the protagonists. Sometimes they chant their own poems in poetry competitions. Sometimes they perform human-like romantic dramas. Crickets, other singing insects, and fireflies play vital roles in expressing the feelings of the human characters who appear in The Tales of Ise and The Tale of Genji, as many now know.

In the late Heian period, singing insects captured during strolls in the wilds near the Saga district of Kyoto were presented to the Imperial Court for enjoyment there, in a custom called mushi erami. The court became the center for development of a culture that adored singing insects and fireflies. That inspired the inclusion of listening to insects and catching fireflies in Japan’s seasonal events.

In this section, we showcase the insects and other mushi who appear in Japanese stories, inviting visitors to explore how their forms are profoundly connected with Japanese literature and art.

The variety of insects and other mushi decorating saké vessels, textiles, hairpins and other everyday items includes butterflies, dragonflies, crickets, and spiders. People found beauty in the remarkable forms of those creatures and enjoyed using them in motifs that convey the feeling of changes in the seasons. Sometimes two butterflies flying in harmony represent a happily married husband and wife, in one of many examples of the use of insect behavior tied to human hopes. Butterflies have long been seen as especially good-luck creatures as well as subjects easily used in designs with scattered motifs. Their use as decorative patterns has thus flourished extensively.

In this section, we introduce insects that decorate utensils and furnishings used in daily life, primarily from the Edo Period.

Plant-and-Insect painting is an established category in Chinese art. The paintings depict wide varieties of plants and insects that represent good fortune, successful careers and numerous descendants. In the Analects, Confucius explains the significance of studying poetry to his disciple Yang Huo (Analects, Yang Huo, 17):

The Master said, “My disciples, why do you not study the Book of Poetry? The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. You can observe the state of the world. They teach the art of sociability. They show how successfully to convey resentment of people and politics. From them you learn the more immediate duty of serving one’s father, and the remoter one of serving one’s lord. From them we become largely acquainted with the names of birds, beasts, and plants.

Confucius’ thoughts about the importance of learning more about that encourages people to increase their own knowledge was one reason for the Chinese love of plant-and-insect painting.

According to the Chronicles of Masterpieces (Lidai Minghua Ji), China’s first serious work of art history, the first paintings of insects appeared during the Six Dynasties Period (third to sixth century). Plant-and-insect paintings appeared during the Tang Dynasty (seventh to tenth century). The category became firmly established by the end of the Northern Song, then flourished during the Southern Song (twelfth to thirteenth century) in Piling (now in Changzhou in Jiangsu Province), where plant-and-insect paintings became a famous local product. They continued to be produced through the Qing Dynasty, and remained extremely popular. They were also brought to Japan, where they were adored and collected by the shogun, the daimyo, and other members of the elite. Japanese painters were thus studied and were influenced by plant-and-insect paintings.

In this section we introduce how plant-and-insect paintings became an established category in China and how they became beloved in Japan.

The Imperial Court had been the center of an emerging culture that adored the sounds of insects. Then, starting in Mid-Edo, going to the mountains to listen to insect sounds and catching fireflies at dusk became elegant entertainments for townspeople as well. Dōkanyama and Negishi in Edo were famous spots for listening to insects and catching fireflies. Ukiyo-e prints and paintings and woodblock printed books from the Edo period show men and women, young and old, setting out for these places to enjoy them to the full. Itinerate insect vendors, who appeared in markets selling fireflies and singing insects in cages, became a summer annual event. The vendors would appear in early June, and their customers would release the insects during the Bon festival. Elaborate insect cages also played an important role in this custom. In them we can feel the enjoyment of insect sounds and how much people enjoyed them as pets.

In this section we trace the development of firefly catching and listening to insects as they gradually became annual events in Edo.

During the Edo period, the promotion of learning about more living things, a thought taken from the Analects, continued to be influential. Advances were made in honzōgaku, the study of animals, plants, and minerals for use in Chinese medicine, and the names of plants, animals, and other materials that appeared in texts were identified. Insects, which had long been used as motifs in poetry and song as markers of the seasons, became an object of study, as were plants, animals, and birds. Progress in these areas took off in the eighteenth century, following the decision of the eighth Tokugawa Shogun, Yoshimune, to relax laws prohibiting the import of Western books translated into Chinese, which led to an influx of information about Western science and technology. Yoshimune also dispatched emissaries throughout Japan to search for locally produced medicines in a nationwide survey of flora, fauna and crops in Japan lasting from 1735 to 1738 that spurred interest in biology.

It was in the context of these times that outstanding encyclopedias were produced, primarily by daimyo and hatamoto, direct vassals of the shogun. Their accurate, minutely detailed depictions of insects’ distinctive features show the joy of acquiring new knowledge that their creators and viewers must have felt. Lively depictions of more different kinds of insects appeared in plant-and-insect paintings. Meanwhile, respect for Chinese plant-and-insect paintings and the study of them continued unabated.

During the Edo period, the introduction of Western technology, the development of scholarly fields such as the study of honzōgaku, and learning from ancient paintings, combined with the influence of literature and art, stimulated the creation of paintings of insects that transcended the conventions of the plant-and-insect category. Please note, as you enjoy these Edo plant-and-insect paintings, that the leading artists of that period, such as Itō Jakuchū, Sakai Hōitsu, Kitagawa Utamaro, and Katsushika Hokusai, used insects as motifs.

Since the Meiji period (1868-1912), insects and other creatures have continued to be used as motifs in artworks. The influence of the West breathed new life into works with roots in tradition, inspiring new possibilities. Listening to insects and catching fireflies, which established as annual events in the Edo period, permeated everyday life and became even more widespread since the Meiji period. This phenomenon surprised Lafcadio Hearn and other foreign visitors to Japan. Now catching fireflies and listening to insects are no longer as popular as they once were; but there has been progress in improving techniques for observing insects and other creatures, making possible an endless stream of new forms of creative expression. Our love of insects lives on today.