Bookcase with Writing Utensils, Books, and Potted Adonis

Bookcase with Writing Utensils, Books, and Potted Adonis, a [surimono](/glossary/surimono) of about 1820 by Yashima Gakutei in the Art Institute of Chicago, belongs to the still-life or interior-objects strand of kyoka-e. Surimono were privately commissioned woodblock prints issued by poetry circles, and one of the genre's recurring pleasures was the depiction of carefully arranged scholarly accessories: a bookcase stacked with bound volumes, a brush and inkstone, a small flowering plant in a pot. In this image Gakutei arranges those elements around a potted adonis, the early-spring flower that announced the New Year in the literary calendar, so the print functions as a poetic still life keyed to a particular season. As a member of the Hokusai school under Katsushika Hokusai, Gakutei was steeped in the school's interest in objects observed closely and rendered with crisp design. Here he uses a measured palette of greens, yellows, and accents of red, combined with deluxe surimono techniques such as [karazuri](/glossary/karazuri) embossing of book covers and burnished metallic pigments on lacquered surfaces, to give each object a distinct physical presence. The kyoka verses that would have been printed beside the image asked the viewer to read the still life as a portrait of the poet's own studio. As a Yashima Gakutei surimono in the Hokusai school manner, Bookcase with Writing Utensils is a small treatise on the rituals of a literary life, condensed into a single luxurious sheet.