An Elegant Parody of the Six Poetic Immortals (Furyu yatsushi rokkasen): The Priest Kisen

An Elegant Parody of the Six Poetic Immortals (Furyu yatsushi rokkasen): The Priest Kisen, dated 1788 in the Art Institute of Chicago, is part of Chōbunsai Eishi's reimagining of the canonical group of six early Heian poets selected by Ki no Tsurayuki in the preface to the Kokin wakashū. The Rokkasen formed a touchstone for literate culture across the Edo period, and the conceit of dressing them as contemporary beauties, captured in the term yatsushi, was a defining device of the Chobunsai school. The Priest Kisen, known for the poem on his hut at the foot of Mount Uji, is here translated into a figure of modern Edo bijin-ga, the classical reference signaled by emblematic details such as a thatched dwelling, a willow, or a quoted verse so that viewers could enjoy the layered reading. Eishi's training in the Kano studio of Eisen'in Michinobu under the shogun lent his prints a discipline of spacing and gesture that suits this kind of literary play. Figures are drawn in his tall, slender proportions; contours run in long unbroken curves; and color is kept restrained so that patterned textiles and the calligraphic cartouches carry the design. The Art Institute of Chicago records the 1788 date and confirms the impression's place within the Furyu yatsushi rokkasen series, an important demonstration of how Eishi adapted classical Japanese poetry to the visual world of late eighteenth-century woodblock prints.