Page 248 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE JAPAN UKIYO-E MUSEUM, MATSUMOTO

The five Noh plays and two other anecdotes constitute the Seven Hi no moto in the second line means the land of the rising sun,
Komachi Episodes (Nana Komachi) that were revitalized for Edo- Japan. Ame ga shita in the last line, meaning the whole of the
period (1615–1868) audiences in numerous adaptations for ukiyo-e. country “under the heavens,” is also a homophone for “below the
In the painting here, Hokusai represents Komachi Invoking Rain rain.”
(Amagoi Komachi); the Noh play of the same title no longer is
performed. The story begins with a time of extreme drought during Hokusai changed his art names as frequently as his residences to
the reign of the emperor Junna (r. 823–33), who, historically, signal new phases in his work. On this painting he uses the name
was on the throne when Komachi presumably was born. In the Taito, an abbreviation of Taihokuto, one of the Seven Polar Stars,
legend, he summons her to compose a poem to Zennyo Ryuo, to which the artist was a fervent devotee. The pseudonym accords
the dragon deity presiding over rain. The narrative borrows from with his work between 1810 and 1820, a period of fruitful painting
rain ceremonies Junna ordered from the monks Kukai and Shubin commissions for Hokusai, then in his fifties. The seal on the
to end a three-month dry spell. After performing observances at painting, Musashi Shimofusa, is more rare. It appears on a hanging
a temple on an island in the pond of the emperor’s Shinsen-en scroll with the same Taito signature by Hokusai in the National
garden, Komachi recites her poem and flings the poem slip on Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC of a young woman
which she has written it into the water. Three days of deluge holding a letter behind her back (Freer1904.185). In his Hokusai
follow. nikuhitsuga taisei (Compendium of Hokusai paintings; Tokyo:
Shogakukan, 2000), Nagata Seiji remarks that around ten works
Hokusai styles Komachi in elaborate Heian-period (794–1185) attributed to Hokusai share this seal and either the art name Taito
court attire, twelve layered robes, or junihitoe, of different patterns, or Gakyorojin manji. He cites as major works with this seal the
suggested here rather than drawn one on one. She raises her present Komachi Invoking Rain, the Freer woman with letter and a
arms under her long sleeves to proffer her poem slip and inclines handscroll of the four seasons in the Nara Prefectural Museum.
her head in supplication. The figure is reminiscent of classical
renditions of Komachi that show her seated––normally in a light Komachi Invoking Rain comes from the distinguished collection of
outerrobe dotted with flowers, as here––with a closed or open fan. the Sakai family, who were successful merchants in Matsumoto in
The flowers painted on the robe allude to one of Komachi’s most the mountains of Nagano Prefecture, about 170 kilometers (105
famous poems, in which she uses the fading flower as a metaphor miles) northwest of central Tokyo. Sakai Yoshitaka (1810–1869),
for the cooling heart of a lover, as well as her own bloom and the seventh generation of the family, cultivated relationships with
decline. Hokusai, Hiroshige and their contemporaries. With his brothers
Teisuke and Senzaburo, Sakai Tokichi (1915–1993) founded
The overall impression of the painting is formal and delicate, a private museum on the outskirts of the city in 1982. With
implying that the person who commissioned this painting from holdings of over 100,000 Edo-period woodblock prints, paintings,
Hokusai had a particular treatment in mind, specifically one that screens and books the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum is the largest single
was not, like most Nana Komachi imagery of the Edo period, collection devoted to the genre. While the museum was intended as
substituting a courtesan for the poet in fashionable contemporary a study center for ukiyo-e, it holds rotating exhibitions, including
dress. Hokusai does manage to insert a bit of his customary modern and contemporary Japanese prints that have entered the
personalizing in the flip of the hemline and central swathe of collection since the postwar era. The Sakai collection came to
voluptuous red. It is not necessary to intrude the poem associated international attention in exhibitions in 1960 and 1966 at the
with the scene in the background of the painting or on the poem Japanese Art Museum of Haifa, Israel; the Musée Guimet, Paris,
paper for the owner and his sophisticated guests could recite 1961; the New York Public Library and Japan Club, New York,
Komachi’s composition themselves: 1962; The Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1963; the New York
World’s Fair, 1964; and in more than sixty exhibitions outside
Japan since.
kotowari ya It is fair to say
hi no moto nareba that this is the land that rests
teri mo sen underneath the sun,
saritote wa mata yet it also lies

ame ga shita to wa below the liquid heavens.