Ehon teikin ōrai 絵本庭訓往来

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Commentary by Ann Yonemura

Posted November 2014

Ehon teikin ōrai was one of several titles with instructional texts that Hokusai illustrated in the 1820s. These three volumes were published sequentially beginning in 1828. The text was originally written by a Buddhist monk named Gen’e Hōshi (died 1350) as a book of ethical precepts and models for letter writing. During the Edo period, the book was adopted for use in Buddhist temple schools (terakoya), which offered instruction in reading and writing throughout Japan.

Hokusai’s Ehon teikin ōrai was one of many illustrated versions of this textbook. His designs clearly demarcate the areas for text, dividing the pages either horizontally or vertically. The illustrations, which freely interpret words in the text, are set mainly in contemporary Edo. Hokusai’s approach to illustrating this erudite text is similar to the one he adopted in Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki (One hundred poets, one verse each, as explained by the nurse; circa 1835–36). In that incompletely published print series, he often departed from the world of the Japanese court (whose poets had created the verses) and depicted scenes of contemporary life inspired by the tales of an elderly nurse.

Selected reading:

Jack Hillier, The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration (London: Sotheby Parke-Bernet Publications; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 198–201.

Toda Kenji, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (1931; repr., Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), p. 258.

Copies in other collections:

Art Institute of Chicago (incomplete first edition and 1848 edition)

British Library, London

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

National Institute of Japanese Literature