(b AD 944; d 998). Calligrapher. He joined the court nobility in 978, attaining the high rank of Senior Third in 984. In 991 he was appointed Deputy Governor (Dazai Daini) of Dazaifu in Kyushu. According to records, Sari created many important calligraphies, including name plaques for the imperial palace buildings and gate, and for the Rokuharamitsuji, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto; for these plaques his calligraphy would have been copied in carving by craftsmen. The earliest extant calligraphy by Sari is the Shikaishi (priv. col.), a poem written on a kaishi (jotting paper), believed to have been composed by him in 969 during a poetry party held at the residence of his grandfather, Fujiwara no Saneyori. It is also thought to be the oldest extant example of handwritten calligraphy on a kaishi. A spontaneous piece, in Chinese characters, it exhibits Sari’s mastery of the tradition of the influential 4th-century Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi (see WANG (i), (1)) and of the style of Ono no Michikaze. The irregular spacing of the characters and the eccentric diversity of ink tone reveal Sari’s forceful and impetuous temperament. He is considered a less ‘dignified’ calligrapher than Michikaze, less ‘elegant’ than Kozei and more individualistic and unconventional than both, in his writing style as in his life. The remaining genuinely attributable extant works by Sari are such letters as the Kyokajo (‘Avoiding summer’; see Tamura, pl. 30), probably written between 983 and 985, the Rirakujo (‘Leaving the capital’, c. 991; Tokyo, Hatakeyama A. Mus.), written to his nephew Fujiwara no Sanenobu on the way to Dazaifu, and the Tonobenjo (see Tamura, pl. 31), a letter of enquiry to the Head Chamberlain probably written in 998, four months before Sari’s death. Sari’s letters were all written in great haste and display an emphatic linearity unusual in Japanese-style (Wayo) calligraphy. The sharply angled turns where the brush changed direction were characteristic.

Part of the Fujiwara (ii) family

• Fujiwara no Sari
  • Japan, §VII, 1(iii)(b): Calligraphy: Heian period
  • groups and movements
    • Fujiwara (ii)
    • Japan, §VII, 2(ii)(b): Calligraphy: Early courtly styles, Middle Heian period
    • Japan, §VII, 2(iii)(a): Calligraphy of the Shoren’in school: Prince Son’en
    • Ono no Michikaze
  • works
    • Japan, §VII, 2(iii)(a): Calligraphy of the Shoren’in school: Prince Son’en