Poem by Minamoto no Muneyuki Ason, from the series One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki)
Katsushika Hokusai Japanese
Not on view
This print is from Hokusai's last important print series, left incomplete at his death. One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets is a famous anthology of classical waka poems.
On a label at the upper right corner, a poem by Minamoto Muneyuki
(d. 939) is inscribed:
In a mountain hamlet winter's
loneliness grows deeper.
Both people and grasses are
withered—so runs my thoughts.
In contrast to the waka poem, which concentrates on the loneliness of winter in the mountains, Hokusai's hunters, clustered around a big fire in the snow, have a mad animation characteristic of kyōka, the playful verse more popular in the late Edo period than waka.
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