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Utagawa Hiroshige

Iris (Kakitsubata), 1856.4

Description

Maker

Title

Iris (Kakitsubata)

Year

1856.4

Medium

Polychrome woodblock print

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Techniques

Supports

Dimensions

Image: 22.4 x 28.1 cm (8 13/16 x 11 1/16 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Inscription verso, bottom left in pencil: 223

Place

Japan; Tokyo

Type

Credit

Gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Object Number

34.328

Projects & Publications

Publications

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Fan-Shaped Bird and Flower Prints from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Collection

May 11 - June 30, 1990

This extremely popular motif instantly calls to mind one of the most famous episodes from the prose-poetry classic, Tales of Ise. In episode 7, the poet Ariwara Narihira is forced to journey away from the capital. He stops with a few friends at a place called Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges) and, moved by the beauty of the irises growing there, composes the following poem:

Karagoromo/Kitsutsu narenishi/Tsuma shi areba/Harubaru kinuru/Tabi o shi zo omou.

I have a beloved wife,/Familiar as the skirt of a well-worn robe,/And so this distant journeying/Fills my heart with grief.

The men are so moved that they weep into their meal of parched rice until the rice swells with moisture.

(Translation by Helen C. McCullough in Tales of Ise, Stanford Univ. Press, 1968)

Related

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Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is Iris (Kakitsubata) with the accession number of 34.328. To request a higher resolution file, please submit an online request.