Asahina Saburo throwing beans

This Art Institute of Chicago shikishiban surimono depicts the legendary thirteenth-century warrior Asahina Saburo Yoshihide engaged in the setsubun ritual of mamemaki - scattering beans to drive demons from the household at the start of spring. Asahina, a Kamakura-period strongman famed for his prodigious physical feats and his appearance in Soga monogatari, was a favorite figure for New Year and setsubun surimono because his association with conquering demons made him an apt protector against ill fortune in the year ahead. Hokkei renders the warrior with vigorous draftsmanship - powerful limbs, dynamic stance, the beans flying in calligraphic arcs from his outstretched hand. The choice of an outsized historical strongman performing a domestic festival ritual exemplifies the mitate sensibility of surimono: a deliberate collision of registers that produced both visual delight and the kind of layered cultural reference that kyoka poets relished. The print's inscribed verses would have played on the contrast between demon-conquering hero and humble bean-throwing. The Art Institute's impression preserves Hokkei's confident line work and the saturated coloration characteristic of his finest privately printed work.