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Utagawa Hiroshige

Iris (Kakitsubata), 1856.4

Description

Maker

  • Utagawa Hiroshige, 1797-1858, Japanese

Title

Iris (Kakitsubata)

Year

1856.4

Medium

Polychrome woodblock print

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • color,
  • ink

Techniques

  • wood block,
  • woodcut

Supports

  • paper

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

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Object Number

34.328

Projects & Publications

Publications

Hiroshige

Birds and Flowers

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Feathers, Flowers, Talons and Fangs

February 2 - June 10, 2007

Summer Brilliance

June 14 - September 15, 1996

Bird-and-Flower Prints

December 26, 1992 - February 28, 1993

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)

Hiroshige III

April 13 - June 23, 1989

Hiroshige

September 9, 1988 - January 22, 1989

Related

Utagawa Hiroshige

Hydrangeas (Achisai [Ajisai]), 1857.1

Utagawa Hiroshige

Hollyhocks (Hanaafuhi), 1856.4

More objects +

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 high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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