KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) POEM BY CHUNAGON YAKAMOCHI | EDO PERIOD, 19TH CENTURY

S. Nagata, Hokusai Museum (Hokusai Bijutsukan): Tales (Monogatari-e), vol. 5, 2nd ed. (Tokyo, 1990), pl. 134

The Japan Ukiyo-e Academy, Hokusai serial catalogue, Daimaru Museum, Tokyo, 29 December-11 January, exhib. cat. (Matsumoto, 1992), pl. 79

Okayama Museum, Tokubetsu-ten Hiroshige to Hokusai Rokuju yoshu meishozu-e to Hyakunin isshu uba ge etoki (Sakai Collection), Okayama Museum, Okayama, 29 October - 23 November, exhib. cat. (Okayama, 1983), pl. 6

W. Crothers, T. Kobayashi and J. Berndt, Hokusai, NGV International, Melbourne, 21 July- 15 October 2017, exhib. cat. (Melbourne, 2017) p. 173

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.

The poem in this print is by Chunagon Yakamochi (Otomo no Yakamochi, 718-785), an important political figure who compiled the first Imperial anthology of poems.

Kasagi no

Wataseru Hashi ni

Oku shimo no

Shiroki wo mireba

Yo zo fuke ni keru

If the 'Magpie Bridge'

Bridge by flight of magpies spanned

White with frost I see

With a deep-laid frost made white

Late, I know, has grown the night

For another impression see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no. JP2934