Ono no Komachi, from the series "Framed Pictures of Women for the Katsushika Circle (Katsushikaren gakumen fujin awase)" c. 1822

Yashima Gakutei produced this woodblock print, Ono no Komachi, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. It depicts the famous poet Ono no Komachi, a woman of legendary beauty, and one of the Thirty-six Immortal Poets. In this print, Komachi is shown in a moment of distress, looking down at a fallen letter. It’s a subtle reminder of the social structures that shaped the lives of women in 19th-century Japan, even those of great renown. The ‘floating world’ of ukiyo-e prints offered a space for artists to comment on the social and cultural norms of their time. Gakutei was a member of the Katsushika school, associated with the artist Hokusai, and part of the vibrant artistic scene in Edo-period Japan. To understand this print more fully, we might turn to collections of poetry from the period, or to social histories of the Edo period. These sources help to understand the complex interplay between artistic representation, social expectation, and individual experience.