No. 117, January 2001

Selections from the NDL Collection
Terakoya Kakizome (New Year's first writing at an elementary school of the Edo period)

Mitate-e of a famous kabuki play Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (Sugawara's Secret of Calligraphy). Mitate means metaphor or comparisons. Ukiyoe artists were inspired by historical events, figures or classic masterpieces to develop their own variations on a theme. Sometimes these connections are clear; at other times we can barely establish a recognizable connection. In the original kabuki play, the boy Kotaro was enrolled at a terakoya school with his mother to save his master's son's life at the sacrifice of his own. 

The terakoya was an Edo period elementary school where the children of commoners learned reading and writing. In Toyokuni's time (from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century), the school attendance rate, including children who went to schools other than terakoya, exceeded 70% in Edo (now Tokyo). In this terakoya of Toyokuni's imagination, students of all ages are all working together. 

Eighteen people are depicted in the terakoya. Most are concentrating on kakizome, the first writing exercise of the New Year. It was - and still is - a custom in Japan to calligraph an auspicious proverb or poem. Today most elementary school students do it as homework during the New Year holidays. Here, clustered around the central figure of the teacher, we see students in their best clothes, most absorbed in their task, although one lazy girl is yawning and stretching. There is also a mother who has brought her child to start school on this auspicious day. 

Toyokuni I (1769-1825), real name Kumakichi Kurahashi and pseudonym Ichiyo-sai, was born the son of a carver of dolls and puppets. Apprenticed to Utagawa Toyoharu, he took the name Toyokuni and was the founder of the Utagawa School. Famous especially for his depictions of kabuki actors, Toyokuni created many woodblock prints, book illustrations and original paintings. Toyokuni III was his pupil.