Kyoka Ehon Shokunin Kagami

Kyoka Ehon Shokunin Kagami is a Katsushika Hokusai ukiyo-e illustrated book of about 1803 in the Art Institute of Chicago. The title translates roughly as Mirror of Craftsmen in Kyoka, and the volume gathers scenes of Edo artisans with the humorous verse of kyoka poetry clubs, who had a long-standing affection for portraits of trades and labor. Hokusai illustrates carpenters, weavers, smiths, and other tradespeople at their workbenches, drawing on the same close observation that would later organize his great Hokusai manga and his Thirty-six Poets as Craftsmen surimono series. The kyoka-album format meant that each illustration was framed by verse that played on the proper names of poets and the names of trades, turning the book into a sustained literary game built on the dignity and humor of ordinary Edo work. As a ukiyo-e illustrated book, Kyoka Ehon Shokunin Kagami is part of a rich Edo culture of pictorial publication that extended well beyond single-sheet broadsides. The drawing is consistent with the figural style of Katsushika Hokusai's contemporary surimono and Tokaido sheets, with quick, characterful gestures replacing formal pose, and the integration of figure with workbench, tool, and product looks forward to the artist's later manga volumes. The Art Institute of Chicago impression preserves the careful color and cutting that distinguishes deluxe kyoka publications from ordinary commercial books.