Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) | The Poet Abe no Nakamaro | Edo period, 19th century

W. Crothers, T. Kobayashi and J. Berndt, Hokusai, exh. cat. (Melbourne, 2017).

One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki) was Hokusai's final series of single-sheet woodblock prints. He based it upon a thirteenth century anthology of well-known poems, the Hyakunin Isshu (A Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets). These poems, based on love and melancholy, were assembled by the poet Fujiawara no Teika. Hokusai chose to visually recount the poems from the perspective of a fictional elderly nurse.

The series was never completed and only twenty-seven published prints are known. However, other unpublished designs exist for a further sixty-two prints, all preparatory drawings and one key-block print.

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 China as a youth to discover the secrets of the Chinese calendar. On discovering his intentions, the Emperor of China had him arrested; the scene depicted by Hokusai in this print. The poem by Abe no Nakamaro has been translated by Peter MacMillan in One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse, (London, 2016), p. 10:

I gaze up at the sky and wonder:

is that the same moon

that shone over Mount Mikasa

at Kasuga

all those years ago?

Ama no hara

furisake mireba

Kasuga naru

Mikasa no yama ni

ideshi tsuki kamo

Abe no Nakamaro stands on a hilltop at the centre of the composition. Clothed in an elegant robe, he is flanked by two kneeling soldiers and further soldiers a little further back, who wait respectfully for him to finish his verse. The poet longingly looks out towards his homeland, the moon - the central subject of the poem - is abstractly included by Hokusai as a reflection in the water.

For a similar impression in the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 11.17664, go to: 

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/209276

For another in the collection of The British Museum, London, museum no. 1906,1220,0.574, go to: 

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1906-1220-0-574