Object Details
- Artist
- Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川広重 (1797-1858)
- Label
- Like Hokusai, Hiroshige produced a large number of striking prints of natural subjects, including animals. Here bats, auspicious symbols in China and Japan, are rendered in black ink in a simple composition that creates a striking, abstract design. Color is restricted to black, gray, and blue, and a quarter circle of unprinted paper represents the full moon. To the lower right, pilings on an embankment are rendered as wide brushstrokes of black ink. The replication of brushstrokes without outline is a striking feature of this print, which also has a seventeen-syllable haiku (hokku) inscribed in cursive calligraphy:
- Bats
- living in darkness,
- the color of their wings.
- Collection
- National Museum of Asian Art Collection
- Exhibition History
- Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints from the Anne van Biema Collection (September 15, 2002 to January 9, 2003)
- Credit Line
- The Anne van Biema Collection
- ca. mid 1830s
- Period
- Edo period
- Accession Number
- S2004.3.221
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Medium
- Ink and color on paper
- Dimensions
- H x W (overall): 26.4 x 12.5 cm (10 3/8 x 4 15/16 in)
- Origin
- Japan
- Related Online Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- See more items in
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
- Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
- Topic
- Edo period (1615 - 1868)
- moon
- bat
- poetry
- Japan
- haiku
- ukiyo-e
- Japanese Art
- Anne van Biema collection
- Record ID
- fsg_S2004.3.221
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ye30819037d-54e4-4285-aa05-03ef44ea46ea
