Illustration of a Poem by Bunyano Yasuhide

Illustration of a Poem by Bunyano Yasuhide is a Suzuki Harunobu print documented through ukiyo-e.org from the Art Institute of Chicago. The design belongs to the well-developed Edo tradition of imaging the Six Immortal Poets (Rokkasen) of the Heian court, of whom Bunyano Yasuhide was one. Yasuhide's famous waka likens the swirling autumn wind to a poet's restlessness, and ukiyo-e designers regularly used such poems as the verbal point of departure for mitate-e (elegant parodies) that placed contemporary figures and Edo settings beneath the canonical text. Harunobu's version translates the classical conceit into the polychrome idiom of nishiki-e. A slender Edo figure, dressed and posed in the bijin-ga manner he helped to define, is set against an autumnal motif - leaves, wind, or a stand of grasses - that links the scene back to the original poem. The deluxe printing technique allows muted browns, pale greens, and warm flesh tones to be registered against one another in carefully controlled gradations, and the surface treatment of the robe and accessories functions as a decorative analogue to the careful syllabic patterning of the poem itself. The print exemplifies the way Harunobu and his contemporaries used Edo bijin-ga to bring courtly literature and the floating world into a single, layered visual register. The image is recorded through ukiyo-e.org at ukiyo-e.org/image/aic/108676_583164 as Illustration of a Poem by Bunyano Yasuhide by Suzuki Harunobu.