poem cards with portraits of modern kyoka poets, Ryūryūkyo Shinsai

Artwork Overview

Ryūryūkyo Shinsai, poem cards with portraits of modern kyoka poets
Ryūryūkyo Shinsai, poem cards with portraits of modern kyoka poets
Ryūryūkyo Shinsai
poem cards with portraits of modern kyoka poets
circa 1805, Edo period (1600–1868)
Ryūryūkyo Shinsai
1764–1820
poem cards with portraits of modern kyoka poets, circa 1805, Edo period (1600–1868)
Where object was made: Japan
Material/technique: color woodcut
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 145 x 191 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 57 1/16 x 75 3/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 14 x 19 in
Credit line: William Bridges Thayer Memorial
Accession number: 0000.1453
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Archive Label 2003: This print presents portraits of late Edo period poets of the kyōka, or ‘mad verse,’ form. The style of presentation, however, creates another mitate (‘look and compare’) image. The poets are shown on poetry cards, used in a popular game in which poets and their poems, or different parts of the same poem, are matched together. Furthermore, the portraits are also composed like traditional images of famous poets of the past. Series of pictures of the “Thirty-six Immortal Poets” were very popular over the centuries in Japan, a tribute to the popularity of poetry and the importance of poets as cultural icons.

Exhibitions

Surimono Prints from the Collection of the Spencer Museum of Art
1991

Citations

Keyes, Roger, and Carol Shankel, Project Director. Surimono: Privately Published Japanese Prints in the Spencer Museum of Art. Tokyo, New York, San Francisco: Kodansha International Ltd, 1984.