Image is an example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (B. 1760, d. 1849)
The poet sits on a hill overlooking a misty plain, while outside the Imperial gateway just below, warders are grouped about a fire.
Th’ Mikaki-mori through the night / (And men the warder Yeji name) / The watch-fire’s blaze keeps full and bright; / When morning breaks, then dies the flame; / So, too, at dawn / My happiness is past and gone. HYAKUNIN ISSHU URAGAWA ETORI The Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse. [From a] complete set of the twenty-seven prints of this series, being all that were published, though Hokusai drew designs for the others. The meaning of many of these ancient poems, which are written in the old Yamato language and contain allusions to things not now recognizable, is obscure, and numerous commentaries upon them have been written. For two of the metrical versions here given the compiler of this catalogue is indebted to Mr. Will H. Edmunds; the others are by Mr. F. V. Dickens.Yoko-e. Signed: Zen Hokusai Manji.
Purchaser: Mr. Richmond
Price: $20.00
Literature
Morse, Peter, Hokusai Katsushika, and 北斎(1760-1849) 葛飾. 1989. Hokusai, One Hundred Poets. . Translated by Clay MacCauley. New York: G. Braziller.
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