A Family Visiting a Shrine in the “Eleventh Month” (Kagura-zuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals in the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Each print in this series of sixteen includes a seasonal pastime. Here, a festively dressed family passes the red lacquered torii gate of a Shinto shrine on their way to a Kagura, or sacred dance performance, associated with the eleventh month of the lunar calendar. The artist borrowed an ancient waka (thirty-one-syllable court poem) to accompany the contemporary scene:
Sugi tateru / mon wa nakeredo /
sato-kagura / kore ya miyai no /
hajime naruran
Though the gateway
has no cypress garlands,
the sacred dances
in the shrine precincts
are about to begin.
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
Sugi tateru / mon wa nakeredo /
sato-kagura / kore ya miyai no /
hajime naruran
Though the gateway
has no cypress garlands,
the sacred dances
in the shrine precincts
are about to begin.
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
Artwork Details
- 鈴木春信画 「風流四季哥仙 神楽月」
- Title: A Family Visiting a Shrine in the “Eleventh Month” (Kagura-zuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals in the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)
- Artist: Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1768
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; vertical chūban
- Dimensions: Frame: 17 1/8 × 13 15/16 in. (43.5 × 35.4 cm)
Image: 11 1/4 × 8 3/8 in. (28.6 × 21.3 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Lent by Lee E. Dirks
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art