poem cards with portraits of modern kyoka poets, Ryūryūkyo Shinsai

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.