# Abe no Nakamaro, seventh poet in the series One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets Explained by the Nurse

- By: Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760-1849)
- Date: c. 1835/36
- Medium: Color woodblock print; yoko oban
- Classification: Print
- Dimensions: 24.9 × 36.4 cm (9 13/16 × 14 3/8 in.)
- Culture: Japan
- Credit line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/89514)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/f74ebce2-06f5-2f5a-bc42-49f6dd6ec20e/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The eighth-century poet Abe no Nakamaro, accompanied by Chinese attendants, stands on a hill in China and gazes toward his home country Japan, to which he never returned. In the poem inscribed in a cartouche at the upper right, he wonders if the moon is the same as he had seen at Mount Mikasa in Nara. Nakamaro, who was sent to China as a young student and diplomat, spent more than fifty years there. Because of rough storms at sea, his two attempts to return to Japan failed. Hokusai placed only a reflection of the moon on the sea to avoid being too obvious.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0