Akazome-emon, one of the 100 Poets looking back over her shoulder

Akazome-emon, One of the 100 Poets Looking Back Over Her Shoulder is a figure print by Inoue Yasuji, signed in his Tankei art name and issued within the educational series An Educational Account of Self-Made Men (Kyoiku Risshiki). Akazome-emon was a Heian-period waka poet included in the canonical Hyakunin Isshu anthology, and her appearance in a Meiji-era moral education series reflects the period's effort to braid classical literary heritage with new ideals of self-improvement. Inoue Yasuji presents her in court costume, her body turned away from the viewer while her head pivots over the shoulder in a classical mikaeri pose, a configuration borrowed from earlier [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) but reworked here with the volumetric drawing and disciplined line that Inoue Yasuji learned from Kobayashi Kiyochika. The palette is restrained, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations in the layered robes and a quiet ground that isolates the figure for clear didactic reading. Although Inoue Yasuji is most associated with kosen-ga cityscapes and the Tokyo Famous Places landscape mode, his contributions to didactic figure series form a substantial second strand of his output and were among the most widely circulated Meiji prints of their kind. The [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org archive preserves this design, allowing scholars to study how Inoue Yasuji adapted the visual grammar of his landscape work to the requirements of pedagogical portraiture and how late ukiyo-e production absorbed classical literary subjects into Meiji curricular culture.