Portraits for One Hundred Poems about One Hundred Poets (Sugata-e hyakunin isshu) 姿絵百人一首

Portraits for One Hundred Poems about One Hundred Poets (Sugata-e hyakunin isshu), dated 1695 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a late illustrated edition of the Hyakunin isshu poetry anthology, designed by Hishikawa Moronobu. The Hyakunin isshu, compiled by Fujiwara no Teika in the thirteenth century, gathered one poem each from a hundred celebrated poets and had long served as one of the foundational texts of Japanese literary education. Moronobu's edition pairs each poem with a full-page portrait of its author. The figures are presented in archaic court robes, identified by name and rank, and posed in attitudes—seated at writing tables, gazing at the moon, beside an open shutter—that echo the imagery of the poems themselves. The text of each poem appears in elegantly proportioned calligraphy alongside or above the portrait. As the ukiyo-e founder, Moronobu was extending into the late stages of his career a project he had begun in the 1670s: using printed picture books to bring the central canon of Japanese literature within reach of an Edo readership that could now read, collect, and display these texts as part of everyday cultural life. His line in the 1695 edition is slightly more refined than in the rougher Fūryū sugatae hyakunin isshu of earlier years, befitting the dignified subject. As one of the last major projects of Hishikawa Moronobu's productive life, the volume stands as a culmination of his work in early Edo ukiyo-e and a final demonstration of his role as the ukiyo-e founder.