Simply Haiku: An E-Journal of Haiku and Related Forms
September-October 2004, vol. 2, no. 5

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Reprint: Jim Kacian, "Looking and Seeing: How Haiga Works."
Previously Published in Haigaonline

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Page 14: The Six Categories

These, then are the six categories of haiga which have held the interest of poets and painters through the tradition to the present day.

The six are, again: representational portrait haiga; non-representational portrait haiga; representational iterative haiga; non-representational iterative haiga; resresentational tangential haiga; non-representational tangential haiga.

Other traditions, such as the tradition of painting of creatures acting as humans, widely practiced five hundred years ago, have died out as faith in a literal interpretation in animism has been superseded by more contemporary creeds.

Each of these categories are still utilized today, but as you might expect, each has been updated to include more modern subject matter, tools and techniques. It is not uncommon to find haiga created on the computer, or incorporating unusual materials in the painting, or including modern content in the poems.

All these things are essential if haiga is to be a modern form, if it is to be an available form for poets and painters to express their contemporary condition aesthetically.

Similarly, the aesthetic which has been identified with haiga, as with haiku, is shifting as painters and poets from cultures other than that of Japan turn their attention to these forms. It is a sign of vitality that the form seems to be able to accomodate these changes without losing its overall shape.

We may here consider how contemporary artists and poets are meeting the challenge of continuing a tradition while updating it to their contemporary cultural needs.