Woman Seated Under a Cherry Tree About to Write a Poem on a Sheet of Paper for Poem Writing (Tanzaku) 19th century

Yashima Gakutei created this woodblock print of a woman seated beneath a cherry tree in Japan sometime in the first half of the 19th century. At first glance, we see a conventional image associating female beauty with the transient loveliness of cherry blossoms, a common theme in Japanese art. But the context is more specific, as the woman is composing a poem on a tanzaku, a traditional form of elegant, elongated card used for that purpose. A poem of this kind would likely be presented as a gift or token of appreciation. We can see visual codes of status and leisure, but it also suggests a social ritual involving acts of aesthetic creation. The black crests behind the figure refer to the specific clan of the patron who commissioned the print, bringing us into the world of artistic patronage and the social institutions that make art possible. As historians, we might want to know more about the role of women in Japanese literary culture, the economics of the woodblock print industry, and the patronage system that sustained artists like Gakutei.