This print, number 39 from the series Kyōdō risshi no motoi (Instructive Models of Lofty Ambition), was designed by Kobayashi Kiyochika in 1886. The composition portrays the young Ogyū (Butsu) Sorai (1666–1728), who would go on to become a great Confucian scholar and philosopher. The scene takes place during his father's exile in a small village sixty miles from Edo. This exile forced Sorai to study on his own, and here he is seen embracing the rural life while studying and teaching a young peasant. Sorai is perhaps best known for his Essay on the Forty-Seven Samurai, in which he lambasted the avenging samurai of Chushingura fame, calling their actions "senseless". He offered the bakufu a way out of their dilemma regarding how to punish the samurai by suggesting they be sentenced to the honorable punishment of seppuku. Kiyochika contributed 20 prints to this series. As noted by Smith, the style of Kiyochika's offerings to this series was "decorous and even stiff, as befitted the didactic emphasis of the whole".
#25000339
VISIONS OF THE FLOATING WORLD
From Hokusai and Hiroshige through Kunisada to Koson – 92 catalogue lots containing over 100 original woodblock prints.
