The starting point for this illuminating study lay in the author's curiosity about the formation of the saijiki, or seasonal almanacs, that have been in use in Japan since the early 19th century, and are still employed by haiku and other poets for reference. What is unique about them is that the seasonal references are all meticulously codified, with explanations. Any haiku poet writing today will possess a copy, if not several different ones.
I have two editions myself, one a pocket version, the other a large unwieldy volume, with tiny print but profusely illustrated, that I dislodge from the shelf with some effort. Descriptive of a poetic sensibility, such works nonetheless embody and express an entire consciousness of the natural environment, its changing imagery. It can be found everywhere, even in modern urban life, but above all in literature and the other arts, including cakes and architecture, and the patterns on cloth.
This conception has a long history and two original sites: the artful garden attached to a rich man's dwelling or a palace, and the fields and farmland of the country village. A high point in its development was reached in the aristocratic culture of the old capital, Kyoto, but it was then transformed in the Edo period, by way of haikai, or short-verse composition, in what became the new capital of Tokyo. From the earliest times two seasons, spring and autumn, were prominent.