| Maker(s): | Katsushika Hokusai
| | Culture: | Japanese (1760-1849)
| | Title: | Kakinomoto no Hitomaro [(Poem by) Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (fishermen hauling in a net)], from the series Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki [One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse]
| | Date Made: | 1835-1836
| | Type: | Print
| | Materials: | Woodblock print (woodcut); nishiki-e, ink and colors on paper
| | Place Made: | Asia; Japan
| | Measurements: | Mat: 16 in x 20 in; 40.6 cm x 50.8 cm; Sheet/Image: 9 9/16 in x 14 3/8 in; 24.3 cm x 36.5 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | SIGNATURE: recot, upp. r. (black ink, within image): [Japanese character, Saki no Hokusai]; SEAL: recto, upp. r. (red ink, within image): [a red pattern of "Manji"]; TITLE: recto, upp. r. (black ink, within image): [Japanese character, Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki]; TITLE: recto, upp. r. (black ink, within image): [Japanese character, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro]; INSCRIPTION: recto, upp. r. (black ink, within image): [Japanese character, Ashibiki no / yama dori no o no / shidari o no / naganagashi yo o / hitori kamo nen]; SEAL: recto, lwr. r. (red ink, within image): [Japanese character, Kiwame]; SEAL: recto, lwr. r. (red ink, within image): [Japanese character, Eijudo].
| | Accession Number: | MH 1973.298.Q.RII
| | Credit Line: | Gift of Mrs. Louis C. Black
| | Museum Collection: | Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
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Description:
A horizontal woodblock print with eight fishermen dragging a net upstream. White smoke billows up from a bon fire at the lower right corner. Green mountains in the background with a lake and a hut, in which a man sits looking out. Number 3 in the series. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro's poem in teh square label reads: "I will sleep alone the whole night through, as long as the mountain pheasant's long, long tial." The print continas a visual pun: the billowing smoke and burning twigs are meant to suggest the "long-tailed pheasant" in the poem. Fukei ga
Label Text:
This is one of a series of prints—of which only 28 are known— depicting a nursemaid’s explanations of a group of famous ancient poems. Each poem is then made the subject of visual pun—sometimes too obscure to be understood—in the prints themselves.
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro lived ca. 660-739 and his poem, in the cartouche to the upper right, evokes a lover alone in the evening: “Listless as the long and drooping tail of a copper pheasant? I am alone through the long and lonesome night.” The smoke of the campfire refers to the pheasant’s tail and the man in the house in the background is the lonely poet, awake through the night.
(2004)
Tags:
Ukiyo-e; landscapes; agriculture Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+1973.298.Q.RII |
