Hawk Tied to Perch

Hawk Tied to Perch is a surimono by Ryuryukyo Shinsai held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a pupil of Katsushika Hokusai and a designer within the Hokusai school, Shinsai produced many still-life and animal subjects for the privately commissioned surimono distributed among kyoka poetry circles. The hawk was a prestige subject in Japanese art, associated with samurai falconry and with the New Year, when a dream of a hawk was considered, after Mount Fuji and an eggplant, one of the three luckiest omens of the season. Here Shinsai depicts a hawk tethered to a wooden perch, its plumage carefully observed and its talons firmly anchored, the very image of a trained, alert raptor. The Hokusai-school approach is visible in the precise linework that defines the bird's feathers and the lean geometry of the perch. As a surimono, the sheet would have been printed with embossed blindprinting (karazuri) to give the feathering and wood grain a tactile relief, soft color gradations for the dappled plumage, and selective metallic pigments highlighting the silk cord, jesses, and bells associated with falconry. The composition unites samurai taste with the auspicious symbolism that surimono were designed to celebrate. Distributed alongside kyoka verses, the print invited members of the commissioning poetry circle to dwell on themes of focus, fidelity, and disciplined patience. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/54402.