Kyōka sanjūrokkasen

Kyoka sanjurokkasen, or The Thirty-Six Immortals of Comic Poetry, is a privately commissioned book of poetry and pictures designed by Katsushika Hokusai for a kyoka circle. Kyoka, literally "mad verse," was the playful, often parodic counterpart to classical waka, hugely popular in late Edo culture and frequently illustrated by leading ukiyo-e artists. Hokusai contributed a series of half-length or seated portraits of the thirty-six imagined modern "poet-immortals" of this comic genre, each pairing a poet's portrait with his or her verse, in conscious imitation of medieval anthologies of the classical thirty-six poets (sanjurokkasen). The result is both an art object and a sociable record of an Edo literary club. The example catalogued by the Art Institute of Chicago is held in their print and book holdings under this title. As an Edo ukiyo-e production, Kyoka sanjurokkasen is significant for several reasons: it shows Hokusai working in a portrait register more often associated with figure specialists; it documents the kyoka subculture that he himself participated in as a designer of surimono; and it demonstrates the close interaction between woodblock printmaking and amateur literary publication in early nineteenth-century Edo. Within Hokusai's wider catalogue, this set complements his landscape and bird-and-flower series by reminding viewers that he was equally comfortable shaping the visual identity of a poetic community as he was depicting Mount Fuji or a great wave at sea.