One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu)
Kyoka neboke hyakushu
About This Series
One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu) is Utagawa Hiroshige's contribution to the long tradition of kyoka anthology illustration, in which the comic and witty kyoka verse, parodying the classical waka tradition, was paired with woodblock-printed images that supplied visual counterparts to the literary play. The Neboke hyakushu, or hundred poems of the half-asleep, was a celebrated kyoka collection associated with the poet-illustrator Shokusanjin Ota Nanpo, whose late-eighteenth-century kyoka revival had brought the genre to the height of its cultural influence. By the early-to-mid nineteenth century, kyoka anthologies and their illustrated editions had become a luxury subgenre of the print market, often produced as surimono or as bound albums for private circulation among kyoka societies rather than for the general commercial trade. Hiroshige contributed to the genre across his career, his collaborations with kyoka poets producing some of his most refined small-format work, and the Kyoka neboke hyakushu project belongs to this tradition. As a designer trained in the figure-print conventions of the Utagawa school and equally capable in the atmospheric fukei-e idiom of his landscape series, he was well suited to the kyoka illustration format, which required both clever pictorial response to specific verses and the technical refinement that surimono production demanded. Surimono printings typically employed costly pigments including metallic dusts, embossing, and elaborate registration that distinguished them from commercial nishiki-e, and the Neboke hyakushu material accordingly belongs among Hiroshige's more luxurious productions. Modern scholarship reads such kyoka collaborations as evidence of the artist's engagement with the literate kyoka subculture that was an important secondary market for his work, and surviving sheets are valued by collectors of kyoka surimono and of Hiroshige's small-format material for the technical refinement and the cultural play they preserve.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu) is Utagawa Hiroshige's contribution to the long tradition of kyoka anthology illustration, in which the comic and witty kyoka verse, parodying the classical waka tradition, was paired with woodblock-printed images that supplied visual counterparts to the literary play. The Neboke hyakushu, or hundred poems of the half-asleep, was a celebrated kyoka collection associated with the poet-illustrator Shokusanjin Ota Nanpo, whose late-eighteenth-century kyoka revival had brought the genre to the height of its cultural influence. By the early-to-mid nineteenth century, kyoka anthologies and their illustrated editions had become a luxury subgenre of the print market, often produced as surimono or as bound albums for private circulation among kyoka societies rather than for the general commercial trade. Hiroshige contributed to the genre across his career, his collaborations with kyoka poets producing some of his most refined small-format work, and the Kyoka neboke hyakushu project belongs to this tradition. As a designer trained in the figure-print conventions of the Utagawa school and equally capable in the atmospheric fukei-e idiom of his landscape series, he was well suited to the kyoka illustration format, which required both clever pictorial response to specific verses and the technical refinement that surimono production demanded. Surimono printings typically employed costly pigments including metallic dusts, embossing, and elaborate registration that distinguished them from commercial nishiki-e, and the Neboke hyakushu material accordingly belongs among Hiroshige's more luxurious productions. Modern scholarship reads such kyoka collaborations as evidence of the artist's engagement with the literate kyoka subculture that was an important secondary market for his work, and surviving sheets are valued by collectors of kyoka surimono and of Hiroshige's small-format material for the technical refinement and the cultural play they preserve.
The One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu) series contains 1 prints, created by Utagawa Hiroshige.
The One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu) series was created by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu) series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
Want to rate prints from One Hundred Satirical Poems (Kyoka neboke hyakushu)?
Sign up to start rating