Parody of Hanshan and Shide (Kanzan and Jittoku)

This witty and colorful painting features two elegantly dressed beauties in lavish kimono. Their brightly patterned sarasa obi sash, folded in broad layers, occupies a visual scale far larger than life and immediately draws the viewer’s attention. One woman carries a broom, while the other lies on the ground reading a scroll. These two figures playfully reimagine the eccentric Chinese poet monks Hanshan and Shide (Japanese: Kanzan and Jittoku), figures long celebrated in Zen painting and literature. Traditionally depicted as ragged hermits laughing at worldly conventions, they are here humorously parodied, in a mitate-e, through the lens of Edo popular culture.

Koryūsai, once a samurai and later a leading ukiyo-e print designer and skilled painter, was admired for both his elegant beauty prints and his inventive use of parody. By recasting these revered figures in playful guise, he bridges serious spiritual themes with the satirical, lighthearted tastes of urban audiences. Such works reflect how Edo period print culture thrived on both reverence and irreverence, transforming classical subjects into witty entertainments for a sophisticated, pleasure-seeking society.