Parrot Komachi, from the series The Fashionable Seven Komachi (Furyu nana Komachi)

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

The stooped figure of an elderly Ono no Komachi stands in the distance behind two fashionable young women and a child. In this scene, one of the women holds a piece of paper with a poem written on it, a reference to a specific episode in Komachi’s life. After receiving a poem from the emperor, she replied by returning the same poem with only one character changed. Komachi’s response was comparable to that of a parrot, hence the name of the story, “Parrot Komachi."

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