Konishi Hirosada (ca 1810 - 1864) Ariwara no Narihira and Ono no Komachi in Kakitsu shinko okimiyage, c.1850. Chuban diptych.
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This delightful print commemorates another lost drama, (Kakitsu shinko okimiyage) that celebrated the love affair between two of the great anthologised poets of the Heian Period of Japan (825 - 880), Ariwara no Narihira and Onono Komachi.
The Japanese regard for romantic poetry was boundless for a millennium. In the nineteenth century, collections such as the One Hundred Poets or the Thirty-six Poetic Geniuses, were widely known, taught and memorised. The great poets themselves, arranged in hierarchies and schools, were tremendous heroes and avatars of love, loyalty, wisdom and compassion.
Ono no Komachi… pictured on the left sheet, was renowned for her beauty and genius as one of the thirty-six immortals of poetry. Even today she is known in Japan as an example of ideal womanhood. Nothing really is known of her actual life although there are plenty of myths around her. One of these involves her presumed love affair with another leading light of the time, Ariwara no Narihira.
Like Komachi, Narihira is named as one of the thirty-six Poetic Immortals and was included in the Ogura Poets anthology. He was of noble birth, as were the majority of poets of the time; he was renowned for his love affairs; and was linked to Komachi, perhaps solely because they were placed next to each other in some collections. By the fourteenth century, Komachi had been inserted into the text of his biography but it is all speculation. Legend has it that Komachi died alone, forced to wander in ragged clothes, her beauty faded and her appearance so wretched that she was mocked by all around her, as punishment for her earlier mistreatment of her lovers. Yet another group of legends concern her death, her skull lying in a field; when the wind blows through the skull’s eye socket the sound evokes Komachi's anguish
Aside from the exquisite delicacy of the drawing and the subtlety of the composition, the striking feature of the print is the deep and sweeping incised lines to the hair of Komachi on the left sheet. The print is beautiful, very rare… only the left sheet is widely known, and intact. Colour and impression are fine but the thin paper has suffered worm damage to the bottom edge and some other paper damage which has had minor repairs to it. The condition over all is very good aside from these issues.
36 x 25 cm.
