The Six Cat Sages
of the Current Style
The Edo-period ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi was a cat lover of historic proportions. He always kept many cats in his house, and there is even a story that he painted while holding a cat inside the front of his kimono.
This is the work in which that cat-loving artist took up the Rokkasen, the charismatic Six Poetic Sages of the Heian period, as his theme.
But every one of them has been swapped for a fluffy cat!
The print is an oval with a piece missing because it was originally an uchiwa-e, a picture made to be pasted onto an uchiwa fan, a summer essential. The people of Edo got through the hot summers by fanning themselves with these cute cats.
Click the fluffy red circle on the label of any cat you are curious about. The poet who served as the model will be shown. ClickTap the name that appears to go to that poet's page.
Ōtomo no Kuronushi, drawn as the black-spotted cat at the bottom right, does not link anywhere, however. He is the "unlucky poet," the only one of the Six Poetic Sages who was not chosen for the Hyakunin Isshu. Perhaps because his name contains the character for "black" (kuro), he has long been cast as a cunning villain in stories and has always gotten the worst of it. One example is the story Sōshi Arai ("Washing the Book"), which is also very famous as a Noh play.
- The Story of Sōshi Arai
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Ahead of a poetry contest (utaawase) to be held at the palace, Kuronushi schemes to defeat Ono no Komachi, the finest poet of the day. He secretly sneaks into Komachi's residence and overhears the masterpiece she recites.
Kuronushi writes that poem in advance into an old copy of the Man'yōshū, and on the great day he accuses Komachi: "This poem was stolen from a fine old work." Cornered, Komachi keeps her wits about her and asks to wash the book with water.
Then only the ink that Kuronushi had added just before is washed cleanly away, and her innocence and Kuronushi's deceit are brought into the light of day.
Kuronushi is portrayed as a thoroughgoing villain who tries to frame Komachi and is beaten at his own game. Because of this "villain" image and because he was "not chosen for the Hyakunin Isshu," Kuronushi has always had a hard time throughout history.
But look at the black-spotted cat Kuniyoshi drew. Doesn't he look relaxed and happy, as if he could not care less what the world thinks of him?
Perhaps Kuniyoshi the cat lover, precisely because Kuronushi had been made to play the hated role so hard in stories, wanted at least in his own picture to set him "free," giving him the most charming form of all.