Ono no Komachi at Seki Temple, from the series The Fashionable Seven Komachi (Furyu nana Komachi)
Chôbunsai Eishi (Japanese, 1756-1829)
Edo period (1615–1868), about 1788
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 37.5 × 25 cm (14 3/4 × 9 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Frederick W. Gookin 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
Legend has it that the poet Ono no Komachi became a nun in her old age and lived in seclusion near Seki Temple, northeast of Kyoto. The once-famous beauty, ashamed of her aged appearance, repeatedly refused social invitations. In a poem associated with this period, Komachi expresses her desire to drift away like a reed on a stream because of her loneliness. In a scene that alludes to the poem, two women stop to speak to a man as he passes them on a riverbank.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
