Cuckoo and Moon (surimono)
月下時鳥摺物
by Mori Kansai
- Date:
- 1865
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (surimono); ink and color on paper with metallic pigments
- Source:
- British Museum (via ukiyo-e.org)
月下時鳥摺物
by Mori Kansai
Cuckoo and Moon is a [surimono](/glossary/surimono) (privately commissioned woodblock print) designed by Mori Kansai in 1865 and now held by the British Museum (accession A_1980-1022-0-249). The composition depicts a hototogisu (lesser cuckoo) in flight against a moon, the standard pairing of the lesser cuckoo and the night sky that figures throughout Japanese waka and haikai poetry; surimono were the format in which Edo poetry circles privately commissioned woodblock prints to circulate as New Year greetings or as luxury miniatures to accompany kyōka (comic waka) compositions. The Mori-Kishi-school discipline of close bird observation gives the cuckoo a specific naturalist solidity, while the printing — likely with metallic and embossed elements typical of high-end surimono — would have given the modest sheet a quality of refined private gift. The British Museum's copy is one of the few documented Kansai surimono in an institutional collection and places him within the broader Kyoto-Osaka surimono tradition of the 1860s.
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Woodblock print diptych (surimono); ink and color on paper with metallic pigments
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1873
Album leaf; ink and color on silk
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circa 1847–1852
Woodblock-printed book illustration; ink and color on paper
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1873
Album leaf; ink and color on silk
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
1919
Color woodblock print
January 1938
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Cuckoo and Moon (surimono) (月下時鳥摺物) was created by Mori Kansai (森寛斎) in 1865.
Cuckoo and Moon (surimono) depicts moonlight.