Frogs in a Cage Before a Painted Screen, illustration for The Dry-Shallows Shell (Minasegai), from the series
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image courtesy of
- Art Institute of Chicago
This illustration accompanies the poem known by the name Minasegai (The Dry-Shallows Shell) from a classical anthology, likely as part of Hokusai's late series of designs for the Hyakunin Isshu. The composition shows an interior scene with live frogs in a bamboo cage placed before a folding screen (byōbu) bearing painted imagery — a precise and unusual arrangement that renders the poem's imagery in concrete domestic form. The folding screen's painted landscape or natural subject creates a layered relationship with the confined live creatures in front of it: represented nature behind, living nature enclosed. Hokusai's illustrations for classical poetry consistently avoided literal depiction of a poem's stated subject, instead constructing oblique visual arguments that evoke the poem's emotional register through unexpected material juxtaposition. The limited interior palette focuses attention on the textural contrast between lacquered cage, [washi](/glossary/washi) paper screen, and the small figures of the frogs.
1821
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Acrylic paint and oil pastel with oiled charcoal and ink over an ink and graphite underdrawing on paper
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Color lithograph with relief block and hand coloring; edition 35/36
Frogs in a Cage Before a Painted Screen, illustration for The Dry-Shallows Shell (Minasegai), from the series was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎).
Frogs in a Cage Before a Painted Screen, illustration for The Dry-Shallows Shell (Minasegai), from the series depicts animals.