Autumn Wind, from the Furyu rokkasen (The Six Elegant Poets) series

Accession Number
1948/1.156

Title
Autumn Wind, from the Furyu rokkasen (The Six Elegant Poets) series

Artist(s)
Suzuki Harunobu

Object Creation Date
circa 1768

Medium & Support
chûban (medium size) nishiki-e (full-color woodblock print) on paper

Dimensions
10 5/8 in. x 8 3/16 in. ( 27 cm x 20.8 cm )

Credit Line
Bequest of Margaret Watson Parker

Label copy

Suzuki Harunobu

Japan, 1724–1770

The Six Elegant Poets Series: Autumn Wind

Edo period (1615–1868)
ca. 1768
Color woodblock print on paper
Bequest of Margaret Watson Parker, 1948/1.156

In this print a young woman hurries through the autumn wind, shielding her head with a sleeve. At the top, a poem by the Heian period (794–1185) poet Bunya no Yasuhide describes the melancholy feeling that arises when the mountain winds blow the leaves off the trees in the fall. Harunobu was famous for his renderings of willowy young girls, vulnerable if not quite fragile.

This is what is known as a nishiki-e (meaning “brocade print”), a particularly sumptuous multicolored print. Suzuki Harunobu became the father of full-color printing in Japan in 1765 when a wealthy group of patrons in Edo (modern- day Tokyo) commissioned him to design a limited edition of deluxe prints. These prints became such a sensation
that cheaper commercial prints were eventually made with the same designs and from that point forward, full-color printing was the norm.



Subject matter
The subject matter of this print is the autumn wind, demonstrated by the flowing sleeves of a young woman and the waving branches of a nearby tree. An Uta poem by Bunya-no-Yasuhide at the top describes the melancholy feeling when the wind from the mountain blows the leaves off the trees in the fall.

Physical Description
A young woman hurries across a bridge, using one of her sleeves to shield her head from the strong wind. Plants around her bend in the force of the wind, and tree branches lose their leaves. An Uta poem by Bunya-no-Yasuhide graces the top register.

Primary Object Classification
Print

Primary Object Type
color print

Collection Area
Asian

Rights
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Keywords
bridges (built works)
wind (weather phenomena)

2 Related Resources

Japan Pax Tokugawa 1600-1868
(Part of: Empires and Colonialism)
Satire
(Part of 4 Learning Collections)

& Author Notes

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