The Hundred Poets, "Noin Hoshi"

Noin Hoshi (the priest Nōin, 988–c.1051) from Utagawa Kuniyoshi's Hundred Poets series is part of the designer's contribution to a long Japanese tradition of illustrated Hyakunin isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each), the canonical anthology assembled by Fujiwara no Teika in the thirteenth century. Each sheet in a Hundred Poets series typically pairs a single waka with an image keyed to its content or to the poet's biography. Nōin, a Heian-period priest-poet whose anthology entry is the famous verse about leaves blown from the Mimuro mountains coloring the Tatsuta River, is commonly shown as a tonsured cleric in robes, sometimes with the autumn landscape that his poem evokes. Kuniyoshi's Hyakunin isshu sheets stand out within Edo ukiyo-e because the designer brought to the classical-poet subject the same dramatic figural sensibility that powered his warrior prints, often staging the poets in moments of action or narrative rather than the static portrait formulas favored by earlier illustrators. The print also functioned as a mode of literary education: the cartouche carries the canonical poem in calligraphy, allowing the viewer to learn the verse alongside an image of its author. The Harvard Art Museums record this impression without firm year; the series belongs to his mature career. Source: Harvard Art Museums (object 206865).