Ono no Komachi at Seki Temple (Seki), from the series The Seven Fashionable Aspects of Komachi (Furyu yatsushi nana Komachi)
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725 (?)-1770)
Edo period (1615–1868), 1751/64
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; hosoban
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 31.2 × 14.1 cm (12 1/4 × 5 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In the story of Ono no Komachi at Seki Temple (also the subject of a popular Nō play), a monk and a young boy visit an old woman who has a talent for poetry. When the woman utters a verse by Komachi, the monk realizes that she is Komachi herself. The poet and the boy then dance together. In this print, a young mother and her child stand in for Komachi and the boy. In the banner above them is a famous poem by Komachi:
I that am lonely, Like a reed root-cut Should a stream entice me, Would go, I think.
(Translation by Arthur Waley)
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
