diptych print
- Museum number
- 1910,0418,0.193
- Title
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Object: Toru Daijin 融大臣
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Series: Shiika shashin kyo 詩哥写真鏡 (True Mirror of Chinese and Japanese Poems)
- Description
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Colour woodblock print, diptych. Toru Daijin, Japanese court poet, with retainers contemplating the oceanside landscape that Toru recreated in his garden. From a series of ten prints based on well-known Chinese and Japanese poems.
- Production date
- 1833-1834 (c.)
- Dimensions
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Height: 49.80 centimetres
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Width: 23.10 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Clark 2017
In the garden of his Kyoto villa, Minister of the Left Minamoto no Tōru (ad 822–895) famously recreated the seaside landscape of northern Japan, daily introducing fresh seawater so that marine fish and shellfish could thrive there. In one area he even
installed working salt-kilns, a well-known feature of that region. Hokusai’s print relates not to a poem but to the Noh play Tōru by Zeami (1363?–1443?), which dramatizes the story of the garden. Motifs in the print derive from various lines in the play. For example, Zeami quotes a poem by Jia Dao (ad 779–843)
describing birds nesting in the branches of a tree found in the middle of a pond. These appear towards the bottom of the design. Later in the play, Zeami associates the shape of the crescent moon with that of boats. In selecting these motifs, Hokusai may have been guided by illustrations related to the play in Illustrated Book of Nō (Utai ehon, 1735), by Tachibana Morikuni (1679–1748).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2017 8 July - 13 Aug, London, BM, G35, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
2017 6 Oct - 19 Nov, Osaka, Abeno Harukas Art Museum
2022 16 Apr-12 Jun, Tokyo, Suntory Museum of Art, Hokusai from the British Museum
- Acquisition date
- 1910
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1910,0418,0.193
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: B212
