遠く離れた都にいる夫を思いながら、九州筑前に残った妻が寂しい心を慰めるために砧を打つ、世阿弥作の能「砧」の場面に取材した作品です。遠方の夫を思って砧を打つ、という所作は、前漢の武将、蘇武の妻子が、高楼に上って打った砧の音が、胡の国の蘇武にまで聞えたという中国の故事に因んでいます。
砧とは、布や紙を木槌で叩いて柔らかくするための木や石の台のことを指しますが、叩く音そのものも砧といいます。砧はまた秋の季語でもあり、背景には菊も描かれ、しみじみとした秋の情趣が感じられます。清方はたびたびこの「砧」に取材した作品を描きました。

Kinuta (Fulling Cloth) (1947)
color on silk; poem card
27.0 x 23.9 cm
This work is based on a scene from Kinuta (Fulling Cloth), a Noh play by Zeami. Having remained behind in Chikuzen province on Kyushu, the lonely wife strikes the fulling block to console herself as she thinks about her husband, who is far away in the capital. This famous scene is derived from a Chinese legend in which Su Wu, a diplomat of the Western Han dynasty who has been detained in a faraway country, can hear the sound of the fulling block struck by his wife from the top of a high tower.
The term kinuta refers to a wooden or stone block used for softening cloth or paper by beating with a wooden mallet, but it also refers to the sound of the mallet striking the block. It is also a seasonal word for autumn, and the chrysanthemums in the background fully convey the autumnal mood in this painting. The theme of the kinuta is a recurring one in Kiyokata’s paintings.