Ono no Komachi Washing the Copybook, from the series The Fashionable Seven Komachi (Furyu nana Komachi)

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This series of seven prints, four of which are on display in this gallery, show scenes from the life of the poet Ono no Komachi. Many of these events became the basis of Nō and Kabuki plays and were also popular subjects for visual arts. Each story illustrated in the series is identifiable from a few visual clues. Here three women doing laundry by the river stand in for Komachi; the scene alludes to an incident in which the poet washed a poetry book to wipe away altered text inserted by a rival.

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