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A Family Visiting a Shrine in the “Eleventh Month” (Kagura-zuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals in the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)
Suzuki Harunobu Japanese
Not on view
Each print in this series of sixteen includes a seasonal pastime. Here, a festively dressed family passes the red lacquered torii gate of a Shinto shrine on their way to a Kagura, or sacred dance performance, associated with the eleventh month of the lunar calendar. The artist borrowed an ancient waka (thirty-one-syllable court poem) to accompany the contemporary scene:
Sugi tateru / mon wa nakeredo /
sato-kagura / kore ya miyai no /
hajime naruran
Though the gateway
has no cypress garlands,
the sacred dances
in the shrine precincts
are about to begin.
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
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