The Poem of Sangi Hitoshi (Minamoto no Hitoshi), from the series One Hundred Poets, One Verse Each, as Told by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki)
ca. 1838
Hokusai created a series of prints that draw inspiration from poems written almost 1000 years earlier. In this print, a courtier is traveling through a rice field with his attendants at dawn, which is indicated by the red clouds at the far end of a wide-open field. The melancholy feeling resonates well with the poem inscribed in the poem card at the upper right:
Though I reveal my love
as sparingly as the sparse reeds
that grow in low bamboo fields,
it overwhelms me—why is it
that I must love her so?
—Sangi Hitoshi (Minamoto no Hitoshi, 880–951)
Translation by Joshua Mostow, from Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image.
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Sheet size: 10 1/4 x 14 3/4 in. (26 x 37.5 cm)
Gift of Mary and Allan Kollar, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum
2010.47.4
Provenance: [Christie’s, New York, Apr. 26, 1995, lot no. 170]; likely purchased at auction by [Peter Gilder, Arts and Designs of Japan, San Francisco, California]; private collection; [Christie’s, New York, An Important Collection of Japanese Prints, Mar. 25, 2003, sale no. 1298, lot no. 99, reproduced p. 62]; purchased at auction by Allan Kollar, Seattle, Washington, 2003; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2010
