Bai Juyi (Japanese: Hakurakuten), from the series "A True Mirror of Japanese and Chinese Poems (Shiika shashin kyo)"

Bai Juyi (Japanese: Hakurakuten), produced about 1828, is part of Katsushika Hokusai's series A True Mirror of Japanese and Chinese Poems (Shiika shashin kyo), which interprets celebrated verses from the literary traditions of both countries through landscape and figure scenes. The Chinese poet Bai Juyi, known in Japan as Hakurakuten, was among the most influential foreign authors in Japanese literary history, and his works circulated widely in elite and popular contexts from the Heian period onward. Hokusai's design evokes the world of Bai Juyi by means of an open landscape populated with figures whose actions or surroundings echo the spirit of the chosen poem. As a ukiyo-e print, the composition is structured around the contrast between an inscribed cartouche bearing the verse and a richly coloured landscape below. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves an impression of the print, supporting comparative study with the other surviving sheets from the series. Shiika shashin kyo is significant within Hokusai's late Edo ukiyo-e output for the way it integrates classical East Asian poetry with the commercial single-sheet print, broadening the cultural range of the genre. The series also illustrates Hokusai's appetite for ambitious literary collaboration, which would culminate in the Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki of the mid-1830s. The image testifies to the enduring presence of Chinese verse in Edo culture.