A Man Shooting with a Blowpipe, illustration for the Conch Shell (Horagai), from the series A Matching Game with Genroku-period Poem Shells (Genroku kasen kai awase), is a [surimono](/glossary/surimono) designed by Katsushika Hokusai around 1821 and held in the Art Institute of Chicago. The print belongs to one of Hokusai's most learned and intricate surimono projects of the early nineteenth century, combining the courtly kai-awase shell-matching game with the literary memory of the Genroku-period poets of the late seventeenth century.
Each design in the Genroku kasen kai awase pairs a named shell with a verse and an unexpected pictorial subject, frequently linked through visual or verbal puns. The Conch Shell (Horagai) was used as a military signal trumpet in pre-modern Japan, blown by yamabushi mountain ascetics and by warriors on the battlefield. Hokusai illustrates the Horagai with the unrelated figure of a man shooting with a blowpipe, a fukiya, exploiting the parallel between blowing a conch and blowing a dart through a tube. The connection is partly visual, partly aural, and partly a riddle for the surimono's well-educated kyōka-club audience.
The man with the blowpipe is rendered with the figural confidence characteristic of Hokusai's middle Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) period. His pose, half crouched and intent on his aim, gives the small sheet considerable kinetic energy. Refined coloring, gilt and silver accents, and minute embossing reflect the deluxe production standards of surimono and contrast with the broader print run of standard commercial sheets.
As a ukiyo-e print, this design demonstrates how Katsushika Hokusai used the surimono format to bring together poetic erudition, visual wit, and the technical refinement of Edo ukiyo-e.
1821
Color woodblock print with metallic pigments; surimono shikishiban
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
c. 1832
Color woodblock print; oban
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
A Man Shooting with a Blowpipe, illustration for the Conch Shell (Horagai), from the series "A Matching Game with Genroku-period Poem Shells (Genroku kasen kai awase)" was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in 1821.
A Man Shooting with a Blowpipe, illustration for the Conch Shell (Horagai), from the series "A Matching Game with Genroku-period Poem Shells (Genroku kasen kai awase)" depicts landscapes.