Imayo shokunin zukushi uta awase

Imayo shokunin zukushi uta awase (Modern Poetry Contest of Various Artisans) is a woodblock-printed book that situates Kitao Masayoshi within the rich Edo tradition of shokunin zukushi, or compendium pictures of trades and occupations. The format combines images of artisans at work with paired waka or kyoka poems, creating a literary and visual celebration of Edo's productive class. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, the volume reflects Masayoshi's interest in everyday Edo life and his Kitao-school training under Kitao Shigemasa, who was himself a noted designer of figure prints depicting beautiful women, performers, and townspeople. The poetry contest framing is characteristically Edo: it treats the labor of carpenters, weavers, papermakers, smiths, and other tradespeople as material worthy of literary refinement. For collectors and scholars of Japanese woodblock prints, the work demonstrates how the Kitao school used the picture-book format to bridge popular subject matter with elite literary culture. The volume also shows Masayoshi's careful attention to tool, gesture, and posture, anticipating the encyclopedic interest in human occupations that would later flower in his Shoshoku ekagami and in his ryakugashiki sketch albums. The Art Institute of Chicago's holding of this book preserves one example of the deep ethnographic curiosity that runs throughout Masayoshi's printed output.