Introduction

Exhibition Sections

Hishikawa Moronobu
Okumura Masanobu
Suzuki Harunobu
Katsukawa Shunshō
Tsutaya Jūzaburō
Hokusai and His Circle
The Nineteenth Century

Reference

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Hokusai and His Circle: The Literary Network

This design of boys watching tigers on a spring day is one of just over a hundred surimono signed, “Hokusai, the man mad about drawing”; the artist created more than a thousand surimono in the course of his long life. The poem, a New Year’s greeting for the year of the tiger, compresses allusions to the Japanese sayings, “the same winds blow across a thousand miles” (senri dōfū) and “the same wind brings blessings to all” (dōfū onkoto), both auspicious references. The phrase “a thousand miles” (senri) also calls to mind the expression, “a tiger journeys a thousand leagues, and returns a thousand leagues,” used to describe a strong-willed person who finishes what he or she starts—just like Hokusai’s efficient mother tiger ferrying her cubs across the river.

Photo: Courtesy of lender

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