Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Dainagon Tsunenobu (大納言経信) from the series One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu no uchi - 百人一首之内)
ca 1840 – 1842
9 in x 13.625 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Chōōrō Kuniyoshi ga
朝櫻樓国芳画
Publisher: Ebisu
(Marks U037 - seal 16-047)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
British Museum
Muzeum Sztuki i Techniki Japońskiej Manggha, Krakow
Yale University Art Gallery
Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, Brussel (via Ritsumeikan University)
Atomi Gakuen Women's University Library
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden) via Ritsumeikan University
Victoria and Albert Museum "This selection is from a large series of one hundred prints illustrating the well-known poetry anthology, the Hyakunin isshu (One hundred poems for one hundred poets), which was compiled in 1235 by the celebrated poet Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241). Although some view the anthology as a casual collection of poets and poems, most regard it as a careful selection of poetic styles and schools that was designed to educate students of poetry. The Hyakunin isshu has always been a popular subject and has appeared in different aspects of Japanese culture: it has even taken the form of a card game.
This print portrays the poet Dainagon Tsunenobu (1016-97) who is a distinguished statesman as well as a famous calligrapher, musician (viz. on the biwa) and a man of letters. A follower of the poet Sone no Yoshitada, Tsunenobu shifted the direction of Japanese poetry away from the expression of emotions and inner feelings towards the description of nature and of poetic fancy. The poem for which he is most recognised reads:
Yūzareba
Kado-da no inaba
Otazurete
Ashi no maro-ya ni
Aki kaze zo fuku
When the evening comesAfter Tsunenobu recites this poem about the autumn breeze, a frightening ghost appears and responds to his poem with one by the Chinese poet known in Japan as Hakuraten. Kuniyoshi's print illustrates the poet working in his study at night whilst an enormous hirsute ghost recites a poem outside his window.
From the rice leaves at my gate
Gentle knocks are heard:
And, into my round rush-hut,
Autumn's roaming breeze makes way
Each print in this series is numbered in the margin and today 58 of the 100 have been documented. This print is incorrectly numbered 72; it should read 71. [As William Pearl of the Kuniyoshi Project points out. In fact, a number of prints published at or near the same time are misnumbered.]
Like many other sheets in this series, different versions of this particular print exist. One depicts a darkly coloured ghost with a white text on a darker background emanating from its mouth and bokashi (graded colour printing) at the top. A second edition shows a lightly coloured ghost with a white text against a dark ground... and a third edition has a lightly coloured ghost with a contrasting text. The chronological order of these three editions has yet to be fully established."
Illustrated in color and quoted from: Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi 1797-1861 by Robert Schaap, Hotei Publishing, 1989, p. 59, no. 28.
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The text reads partially: 夕されば門田のいなばおとづれてあしのまろやに秋風ぞふく 金葉集秋の部に入る この詞書に師賢朝臣の梅津の山里に人々まかりて田家の秋風といふことをよめるにとなり 夕さればは夕暮のさま也 芦のまろや
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A deeper dive into the background of the story behind this print can be found in an article in Andon 60, September, 1998.
In an article entitled 'The poet and the demon. A Kuniyoshi print and its inspirations' by Ivo Smits the author tells us: "Kuniyoshi has not visualised the poem, but a story about the poet. In this the print is rather special, since Kuniyoshi apparently tended to stick to the poem for his designs. Here he does not and he tells us that much in the top-left comer, where he summarises the following harrowing tale about Tsunenobu, as told in the thirteenth century anecdote collection The selection (Senjusho),
How the Major Counsellor Tsunenobu met a demon At the time when Tsunenobu was living in the neighbourhood of Eighth A venue, sometime in the nine month, when the moon was bright, he went out to have a look. Far off he could hear the sound of a fulling block, and he recited the poem by the Major Counsellor of Fourth Avenue,
utsu koe kikeba
tsuki kiyomi
mada nenu hito o
soranishiru kana
fancy clothes,
now that it is bright, the moon,
would it know by heart
those of us not yet asleep?
when from the garden a truly intriguing voice sonorously chanted the following Chinese poem,
北斗星前横旅鴈 南楼月下擣寒衣
Before the stars of the Big Dipper a line of
travelling geese;
Under the moon above South Tower the fulling
of winter clothes.
He thought to himself, "Who could have such an outstanding voice?," when to his astonishment he spotted a creature some fifteen foot tall, or so he thought, whose hair was growing the wrong way. Fervently he prayed, "What on earth is this? Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, please help me!" The thing said, "Why do you put a spell on me?," upon which the demon disappeared. He could not tell with certainty what sort of an apparition he had seen. Perhaps it was the devil of Suzaku Gate. At the time there really were such refined creatures!' "
Smits goes on to say: "A short philological digression is in order here. The anecdote is centred around two poems from the short section 'Fulling clothes' in yet another well-thumbed anthology, the Japanese and Chinese poems to sing (Wakan rōeishu, early eleventh century). This marks both poems as late autumn poems, because fulling winter clothes, i.e. beating them on the fulling block with a stick so as to bring out their gloss and soften them, is typically an activity in preparation for the cold season. In East Asian literature, fulling is associated with lonely women, rearranging the wardrobe for husbands whose hearts are just as cold as the approaching winter and who will never come to visit. The first poem in the anecdote is not by Fujiwara no Kinto (966-1041), known as 'the Major Counsellor of Fourth A venue,' but by an earlier poet, Ki no Tsurayuki (?872-945). Nor is the Chinese couplet recited by the demon taken from a poem by Bo Juyi (or Haku Rakuten), although Kuniyoshi must have believed so, but by the obscure ninth-century poet Liu Yuanshu."
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This print is trimmed along the left-hand side. If it wasn't you would see the number 72 (七十二) in the lower left.
Yūrei-zu (幽霊図 - ghosts demons monsters and spirits) (genre)
Ebisu (エビ子) (publisher)