Fujiwara no Okikaze / Mitate sanjurokkasen no uchi

Utagawa Toyokuni I's "Fujiwara no Okikaze / Mitate sanjurokkasen no uchi" is one of his contributions to a beloved Edo ukiyo-e genre: the mitate of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets. In a mitate sanjurokkasen series, each classical poet is replaced by a fashionable contemporary figure — typically a beauty, an actor, or a courtesan — and the resulting print invites the viewer to delight in the gap between ninth-century poetic gravity and present-day Edo style. Held in collections documented on ukiyo-e.org, the print pairs Fujiwara no Okikaze's name and traditional poem with Toyokuni's chosen modern stand-in. Utagawa Toyokuni, founder of the Utagawa school's preeminence in kabuki actor prints, here demonstrates that his command of yakusha-e and bijinga extended naturally into literary parody, the kind of multilayered work in which Edo ukiyo-e was particularly inventive. The mitate format presumed a literate buyer: someone who could quote the original poem, recognize the modern reference, and appreciate the wit of the substitution. Toyokuni's figure is rendered with the clean curves and confident outline that distinguish his prints across genre, and the cartouche bearing the poet's name sits as both attribution and joke. For collectors and students working from ukiyo-e.org's image archive, the print is a useful instance of how Utagawa Toyokuni navigated literary culture as well as theatrical celebrity. It also points to the breadth of Edo ukiyo-e's reference field — kabuki actor prints, courtesan portraits, and classical waka all addressing the same buyer.