Totoya Hokkei (魚屋北渓) (artist 1780 – 1850)

Fujiwara no Ietaka [藤原家隆] from the series A Series for Those Who Still Have Their Teeth (Shōshikai Bantsuzuki - 尚歯会番続)

Print

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Date:ca 1822
Dimensions:7.5 in x 8.5 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:Japanese woodblock print
Inscription:Signed: Hokkei (北渓)
Links Spencer Museum of Art Description:"...Hokkei was commissioned by the larger Hanazonoren to design a series on long-lived people who still had their teeth. Apparently, such clubs of old people existed in Japan from 877, and their members would meet, eat very hard food, write poetry and enjoy music."

Quoted from: Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam by Matthi Forrer, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 159.

Later Forrer would write: "How this group of long-lived people was selected is not known, although it is quite likely that the theme and composition were inspired by a contemporary publication." (Ibid.)

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"This print is one of at least ten in a series depicting figures from Japanese history. The series was commissioned by the Hanazono Circle, led by Garyōen Umemaro. The circle's emblem appears at the top of the title cartouche: a side view of a plum blossom whose petals are formed from the hiragana character no の. The term 'elders' (...J. shōshi) in the series title is thought to have originated with the Confucian Classic of Rites..., but the Chinese poet Bai Juyi (J. Hakurakaten; 772-846 CE) seems to have first applied it to a cultural gathering in 845 CE, with Japanese aristocrats adopting the idea in 877 CE."

Quoted from: Reading Surimono: The Interplay of Text and Image in Japanese Prints, entry by Alfred Haft, Museum Rietberg, Zürich with Hotei Publishing, 2008, pp. 214-215.

[The choice of bold type above is ours.]

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Sarah Thompson in her article "Parody and Poetry: Japan versus China in Two Eighteenth-Century Ukiyo-e Prints", published in Impressions in 2002, gives us a synopsis of the the importance of Bai Juyi in early Japanese intellectual circles.

"Traditional critics in both China and Japan concurred in regarding the Tang dynasty as the high point of Chinese classical poetry. They differed, however, in their evaluation of the individual poets. In China, the two Tang poets generally ranked the highest were Li Bai [or Bo] (701-762) and Du Fu (712-770), while the Japanese preferred Bai [or Bo] Juyi (772-846), known in Japan by his alternate name Bai Lotian, or Haku Rakuten in Japanese. Of all the Tang poets, Bai Juyi is by far the most likely to be quoted in classical Japanese literature or included in anthologies such as Chinese and Japanese Poems for Recitation (Wakan rōeishū), compiled around 1013 by Fujiwara Kintō (966-1041). There is no single generally accepted explanation for Bai's enormous popularity in Japan, which began while he was still alive. His deliberate use of a simple, transparent writing style, easy to understand even for those using Chinese as a second language, was probably one reason. Another may be his single most famous work, "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" (Changhenge or Chōgonka in Japanese), a long narrative poem on the tragic love affair of a Chinese emperor and his favorite concubine, which was enormously appealing to the Japanese romantic, imagination, even providing inspiration for the background story of the hero's parents in the Tale of Genji."

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"Fujiwara no Ietaka (also read "Karyū"; 1158-1237) had the sobriquet "Mibu Nihon." He became son-in-law to Jakuren... and studied poetry with Shunzei... He was a member of GoToba's poetic circle and one of the editors of the ShinKokinshū. He has a personal poetry collection known both as the Mini Shū (after his sobriquet) and the Gyokugin Shū (Collection of Jewelled Songs). He has 282 poems in the Senzaishū and later imperial anthologies."

Quoted from: Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua Mostow, p. 430.

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According to the Spencer Museum the poems are by Kashōan Yonemori and Heiantei Nanatsuji.
Related entities surimono - 摺物 (genre)

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