Mice Breaking through a Wall

Shizukeki kuni For our nation at peace On mazu haise Give first thanks Mitsu no gan In your three prayers —Senryu [VI]The lead poet on this piece, Senryu (1814–1882), was the sixth in the line of primarily comic haikai poets who took this celebrated name. A number of the poems on this work are lighthearted, and interested less in the subtle movements of nature than the foibles of the human mind. Thus, one poem takes us inside a painting, playing with image and reality; another reverses the hierarchy of a monkey trainer and his keep; a third analyzes the emotions of a father-in-law at a “water celebration,” held for newlyweds at the New Year; and a fourth points out the auspicious meaning of the curved spine of the New Year lobster decoration in its resemblance to an aged parent’s posture. The characteristic brightness of celebratory New Year verse is shadowed here, however, by disturbances in the political realm at the end of the Tokugawa Era. The uncertainty of the political situation comes in several poems (as well as the illustration) with references to a “useless prince,” celebrating the reign with a damask drum (which, as in the no play of the name, famously makes no sound), and a command to pray first in gratitude for a nation at peace in the three New Year wishes (hopes for one’s own family usually taking precedence).Using a modified Shijo painting style, Zeshin became one of the most prolific and successful illustrators of haikai surimono in the late Edo and early Meiji Periods, helping to bring many of the stylistic and formal practices developed for such works in the Kamigata region (Kyoto-Osaka) to Edo.