Freshly-Picked Flowers in a Traveler’s Hat, illustration for "The Thousand-grasses Shell," from the series A Matching Game with Genroku-period Poem Shells (Genroku kasen kai awase)"

Freshly-Picked Flowers in a Traveler's Hat, illustration for The Thousand-grasses Shell from the Katsushika Hokusai series A Matching Game with Genroku-period Poem Shells (Genroku kasen kai awase), is an Edo ukiyo-e print of 1816 in the Art Institute of Chicago. The chigusa-gai, or thousand-grasses shell, lends itself naturally to floral imagery, and Hokusai turns the conceit into a quiet still life of wildflowers gathered and laid inside a wide-brimmed traveler's hat. The hat itself was a familiar object for anyone who had walked even a short stretch of the post-road system, and using it as an impromptu basket links the literary game of the surimono back to actual travel, a recurrent theme in Hokusai's work. The composition is built on the contrast between the rigid shape of the hat and the loose tangle of plants spilling from its interior, a study in textures suited to the careful printing that surimono allowed. As an Edo ukiyo-e print made for a poetry circle, the sheet is meant to be looked at slowly, in the company of a verse on the same page. For collectors of Hokusai's quieter work, the Genroku kasen kai awase series is some of the most accomplished material in his catalogue. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the print.