Green Peas in a Measure and Sprays of Hollyhock with Heads of Sardines; Symbols Representing the Ceremony of Exorcising Demons

Green Peas in a Measure and Sprays of Hollyhock with Heads of Sardines, with its richly specific subtitle identifying the items as symbols representing the ceremony of exorcising demons, ties Kubo Shunman directly to the Setsubun observance that marks the turn from winter to spring in the Japanese calendar. Dated to around 1800 and held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the print enumerates the ritual objects associated with the holiday: roasted soybeans or green peas in a wooden measure, sprays of holly or hollyhock, and the heads of sardines, all customarily displayed to ward off demons and welcome the new season. Shunman, an Edo ukiyo-e designer and active member of the kyoka poetry circles of his city, was attentive to such calendrical rituals because they provided ready-made occasions for surimono commissions. The composition gathers the ceremonial items on the sheet with his characteristic restraint, allowing the inscribed kyoka verses to play on the practice's superstitions, jokes, and seasonal feeling. The printing typical of refined surimono, with subtle gradations and likely embossed or metallic effects, would have made the sheet a treasured gift among poets exchanging New Year and Setsubun greetings. For modern viewers approaching Kubo Shunman, the work captures the way his kyoka-e practice was inseparable from the urban festive calendar of late Edo, anchoring his refined visual idiom in the everyday rituals that gave his patrons their year-long rhythm.