Analogy
Katsukawa Shunshō 勝川春章 Japanese
Not on view
The beauty of Shunshō's print gathers further elegance from two layers of poetic devices—a visual allustion to the imagery in a poem describing a love "as infinite as the shells upon the shore" and the analogy itself, discussed at length in the preface to the Kokin waka shū. The passage from the preface is quoted in the cloud at the top of the print. The subtle play of meaning between the collecting of shells and the collecting of poetry—a box of shells becomes a visual metaphor for an anthology of poetry—is particularly pleasing.
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