Ono no Tōfū

Ono no Tōfū — the 10th-century calligrapher celebrated in Japanese legend for learning perseverance by watching a frog repeatedly jump for a willow branch — is depicted in this May 1886 nishiki-e in the moment of his famous epiphany. Ono no Tōfū was a standard subject of Meiji-era instructive biography and children's moral literature, his story canonised as an example of the effort required to master a discipline. Kiyochika renders the scene with the dramatic stillness of a man watching and understanding.