Yokihi (Yang Guifei) Playing Koto, from the Series "Noh Songs of Gardens (Hanazono yokyoku bantsuzuki)"

Totoya Hokkei's 1821 surimono of Yokihi (Yang Guifei) playing the koto, from his series Noh Songs of Gardens (Hanazono yokyoku bantsuzuki) and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, draws on the famous Noh play in which the spirit of the Tang dynasty consort appears to a Daoist priest sent by the bereaved emperor Xuanzong. As one of the most poignant figures in Sino-Japanese literary tradition, Yang Guifei (Yokihi in Japanese) embodied the convergence of beauty, music and political tragedy that Edo kyoka poets prized. Hokkei was among the most active surimono designers of his generation and a leading pupil of the Hokusai school, equally comfortable with native and continental subjects. As part of the Hanazono yokyoku bantsuzuki series, the sheet would have been commissioned by a kyoka club organized around the Hanazono name, with kyoka verses inscribed alongside the figure. Surimono printing of this period was distinguished by deluxe techniques unavailable in commercial ukiyo-e: graded color, mica grounds, metallic pigments and karazuri embossing. These finishes would have brought texture to Yokihi's robes, the lacquered body of the koto and the surrounding decorative motifs. Within Hokkei's body of work, the sheet exemplifies the Hokusai school's adaptation of Noh theater to the small, jewel-like format of nineteenth-century Edo kyoka-e.