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Poet Semimaru with his lute in a bag
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849)
1839
- Medium
- Ink and color on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 92.4 × 18.6 cm (36 3/8 × 7 5/16 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Semimaru, a legendary figure said to have been the fourth son of Emperor Daigo (rEIGNED 897-930), was sent to Mount Osaka because he was blind. Myths and legends about Semimaru form the basis of the medieval Noh play of the same name. In the Edo period he was featured as a character in puppet plays and kabuki drama. In an earlier picture in Hokusai's popular multivolume Manga sketchbooks, Semimaru holds a lute (biwa). Here, his instrument is in a cloth bag, and his expression seems introspective. Hokusai had reached his eightieth year when he painted this work in ink and pale colors, a style he had practiced for over forty years. Many of his paintings of this period are thought to include elements of reflective self-portrayal.
