Yamabe no Akahito (active 724–736), One of the Three Gods of Poetry From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1
- Date:
- ca. 1820s
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (surimono); ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
Yashima Gakutei's depiction of Yamabe no Akahito for the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shu), preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, honors one of the three deified poets of the Japanese tradition. Akahito, active in the early eighth century, was a contemporary of Kakinomoto no Hitomaro and a major contributor to the Man'yoshu anthology. His name became synonymous with refined sensibility in nature poetry, and he was eventually venerated alongside Hitomaro and Yamabe no Akahito as one of the three gods of poetry. By including his portrait in an illustrated kyoka anthology, Gakutei flatters the literary self-image of the Harusame shu's contributors, presenting them as heirs to a long tradition of poetic devotion. Yashima Gakutei trained in the Hokusai school under Totoya Hokkei, and his work for kyoka-related publications reflects the broader Hokusai-school commitment to literary collaboration. In a portrait of this kind, he could display the elegance of Heian-period costume conventions and the spare compositional balance favored by surimono and luxury book design. Akahito is shown with the attributes of a poet, embedded in a setting that signals classical reverence rather than narrative incident. The Harusame shu itself was a multi-volume kyoka anthology whose pages combined verses by contemporary poets with portraits of revered predecessors. To open such a volume was to step into a layered conversation between past and present, in which kyoka verse, despite its comic tone, presented itself as a serious continuation of waka tradition. Gakutei's contribution to this scheme exemplifies how the Hokusai school's designers helped shape the visual culture of nineteenth-century Japanese poetic life. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's record secures this connection.
Yamabe no Akahito (active 724–736), One of the Three Gods of Poetry From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1 was created by Yashima Gakutei (八島岳亭) in ca. 1820s.
Yamabe no Akahito (active 724–736), One of the Three Gods of Poetry From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1 depicts spring and rain.
