KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) POEM BY BUNYA NO ASAYASU (FUMIYA NO ASAYASU) | EDO PERIOD, 19TH CENTURY

Timothy Clark, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave (London: British Museum, 2017), n. 140

S. Nagata, Hokusai Museum(Hokusai Bijutsukan): Tales (Monogatari-e), vol. 5, 2nd ed.(Tokyo: Shueisha, 1990), plate 148

W. Crothers, T. Kobayashi and J. Berndt, Hokusai, NGV International, Melbourne, 21 July- 15 October 2017, exhib. cat. (Melbourne, 2017)

Hokusai, National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne, 21 July - 15 October 2017

For his last single sheet series of woodblock prints, One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki), Katshushika Hokusai looked to an anthology of well-known poems, entitled Hyakunin Isshu (A Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets), as his source. These poems, based on love and melancholy, were assembled by the thirteenth-century poet Fujiawara no Teika. Hokusai chose to visually recount the poems from the perspective of a fictional elderly nurse. Together with sixty-four preparatory drawings, twenty-seven published prints are known, each exhibiting bold colour and including a cartouche enclosing the relevant verse. The series was commissioned by the publisher Nishimura Yohachi and his firm Eijudo successfully issued five prints before closing down; the additional twenty-two prints were then published by Iseya Sanjiro’s firm Iseri, with the original Eijudo seal continuing to be employed.

This poem is by Bunya no Asayasu (translation by Joshua Mostow):

Shira-tsuyu ni

kaze no fuki-shiku

aki no ta wa

tsuranuki tomenu

tama zo chirikeru

In the autumn fields

where the wind blows repeatedly

on the white dewdrops,

the gems, not strung together,

do scatter about indeed.

A boat stretches across the width of the lower-half of the composition and is the focus of the print, with the upper half being made up predominantly of an empty expanse of sky. After enjoying an outing out on the lotus-filled waters collecting lotus leaves, five court page-boys endeavour to navigate their way out of a rocky enclosure as a blustery gale develops, blowing through the trees on the nearby headland. Three of the boys attempt to push the boat out using poles, which risk becoming entwined, while the other two desperately try to ensure that the leaves do not fly away.

For another impression at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, see accession no. JP2938