#surimono

[susanoos-wife]

Surimono with Chrysanthemum Design, by Katsukawa Shunsho

[art-mirrors-art]

Yashima Gakutei - Surimono with a reflection in a mirror of a Japanese woman in a Westernized dress (c.1820s)

A surimono (摺物, “printed thing”) was a type woodblock print in Japan, typically produced in small editions for special occasions rather than for commercial sale. In most cases they contained short poems and elaborate image, usually printed in square format on refined paper. The descriptive part:

A woman, adorning herself at her desk. The jeweled sky, the sunlit sky - spring

The poem can be roughly translated as:

Though writing has its place (=is important), let the eyes wander where they please; over a cup of thin (light?) tea, with a heart that listens at leisure, to the village’s voice.

The woman’s half-absent, inward-looking gaze in the mirror rhyme very well with the poem’s drifting, daydreaming tone. Typically for surimono, it's a fairly small print (~18x20cm), and yet the artist managed to brilliantly show this gaze that drifts past the scroll as if wandering elsewhere.

[ukiyoe-jpn-art]

Fan, depicting a minogame (turtle), placed on a fan-stand decorated with plum blossoms, ca 1850

Poems by Shigeji, Kameko and Hanaya. The surimono honors an elderly lady with the name, Kameko - turtle.

[beifongkendo]

Basket with two painted scrolls, surimono print by Kubo Shunman (ca. 1790).

[careful-disorder]

Utagawa Kuninao, Nô Mask and Wrapping Cloth

[goldentortoise]

Yashima Gakutei, Crabs Near the Water's Edge, c1830

[beifongkendo]

Autumn leaves and poem, surimono by unknown artist, 1897.

[chadlesbianjasontodd]

totoya hokkei, "bunsai art circle, the five elements: fire / guide to the [yoshiwara] pleasure quarters", late edo period, ca. 1820. depicting a richly-dressed courtesan at night, caught in the beam of a lantern.