Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Japanese (1798 - 1861) Primary

Poem by Sadanobu kô: Gion nyôgo, from the series Ogura nazorae Hyakunin isshu (Imitations of One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets) 「小倉擬百人一首　貞信公　祇園女御」

Edo
About 1845 - About 1848

Sheet
13 1/4 x 8 3/4 in. (33.655 x 22.225 cm)

This object has the following keywords:

• consorts - Partners in wedded or parental relations, most often applicable when the person holds certain titles, such as Queen-Consort, the wife of a king, or King-Consort, Prince-Consort, etc.
• edged weapons - Weapons featuring a sharp edge or point for cutting, thrusting, clubbing, slashing, or various combinations thereof.
• Edo - Refers to the period and style that developed from the unification of Japan in 1600 until the end of the shogunal dynasty in 1868. During this period, economic expansion encouraged the rise of an educated merchant class who created their own forms of literature and theater as well as new schools of painting and woodblock printing. A wide diversity of pictorial subjects and styles developed during this period and many 19th century Western artists were influenced by them.
• kimonos - Loose, wide-sleeved garments fastened around the waist with an obi or broad sash, traditionally worn by Japanese men and women.
• lanterns - Lighting devices, fixed or portable, designed to protect and enclose the light source, usually with sides of glass, horn, pierced metal, paper, or other material, allowing light to emerge and often having a supporting frame, hanging device, or carrying handle. They may be purely utilitarian or decorative, sometimes having ceremonial significance.
• oban - Japanese prints of a standard size about 15 3/4 by 10 1/2 inches.
• poems - Written or oral compositions characterized by condensed language chosen for sound and suggestive power as well as meaning, and by the use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadences, rhyme, or metaphor.
• poetry - Literary and oral genre rooted in the compressed and cogent imaginative awareness or associations of experiences, ideas, or emotional responses and arranged under an organized criterion of meaning, conscious and unconscious expression, symbolism, formal or informal pattern, sound, and rhythm. The genre encompasses narrative, dramatic, satiric, didactic, erotic, and personal forms.
• Ukiyo-e - Distinctive genre in painting and other media, but most prominently in woodblock printing. It arose in the Edo period (1600-1868) and built up a broad popular market among the middle classes. Subject matter typically focused on brothel districts and kabuki theatres, with formats ranging from single sheet prints to book illustrations. Generally, the style is characterized by a mixture of the realistic narrative of the Kamakura period and the mature decorative style of the Momoyama and Edo periods. Distinctive styles and specialties in subject matter were developed by different schools throughout the period.
• Utagawa, Kuniyoshi, 1798-1861 - Sources:
  - Robinson, B. W.: Kuniyoshi, 1961
  - Suzuki, J. Kuniyoshi, 1985:
  - Forrer, M. Drawings by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, 1988:
  - Info. from 678 field, converted 2012-10-25
  - LC database, June 12, 2020
• woodcuts - Prints made using the process of woodcut, which is a relief process in which the design is cut into and printed from the plank side of a wood block; distinct from "wood engraving (process)," which is a relief process using the grain end of a wood block.