Abe no Nakamaro, seventh poet in the series One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets Explained by the Nurse
c. 1835/36
Medium
Color woodblock print; yoko oban
Dimensions
24.9 × 36.4 cm (9 13/16 × 14 3/8 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
89514
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The eighth-century poet Abe no Nakamaro, accompanied by Chinese attendants, stands on a hill in China and gazes toward his home country Japan, to which he never returned. In the poem inscribed in a cartouche at the upper right, he wonders if the moon is the same as he had seen at Mount Mikasa in Nara. Nakamaro, who was sent to China as a young student and diplomat, spent more than fifty years there. Because of rough storms at sea, his two attempts to return to Japan failed. Hokusai placed only a...
About the Artist
Katsushika Hokusai · 1760–1849
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) stands as one of history's most influential artists, a Japanese master who revolutionized the ukiyo-e woodblock print tradition and profoundly shaped Western art. Born in the Katsushika district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to an artisan family, Hokusai lived through nearly nine decades of extraordinary creative evolution, adopting over thirty different artistic names t...