KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) POEM BY ABE NO NAKAMARO | EDO PERIOD, 19TH CENTURY

S. Nagata, Hokusai Museum (Hokusai Bijutsukan): Tales (Monogatari-e), vol. 5, 2nd ed. (Tokyo, 1990), plate 135

The Japan Ukiyo-e Academy, Hokusai serial catalogue, Daimaru Museum, Tokyo, 29 December-11 January, exhib. cat. (Matsumoto, 1992), plate 80 

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.

The poem in this print is by Abe no Nakamaro (710-790), who travelled to Japan as a boy to reveal the secrets of the Chinese calendar. On discovering his intentions, the Emperor of China had him arrested. In this poem, Nakamaro dwells on the serene of his homeland.

Ama-no-hara

Furi-sake mireba

Kasuga naru

Mikasa no yama ni

Ideshi tsuki ka mo

When I look abroad

O'er the wide-stretched 'Plain of Heaven'

Is the moon the same

That on Mount Mikasa rose,

In the land of Kasuga?”.

Abe no Nakamaro stands upon a hilltop at the centre of the composition. Clothed in an elegant robe, he is flanked by two kneeling soldiers, who respectfully wait for him to finish his verse. The poet longingly looks out towards his homeland, and gazes at the moon, whose serene reflection Hokusai cleverly depicted in the water, its beautiful whiteness standing out against the surrounding blue hues.

For a similar impression in The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, see accession no. 11.17664