Emperor Tenji (Tenchi), from the series One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, as Explained by the Wet Nurse

In 1835, at the age of seventy-six, the artist Hokusai began an ambitious series of one hundred print designs based on the anthology of Japanese classical poetry, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each. The series was not completed, probably due in part to the economic duress caused by the Tempo Famine (1833-36). Only twenty-seven prints are known, but fifty-five additional images survive as Hokusai's original drawings for key blocks. Hokusai's print for the first poem of the series focuses entirely on the lives of common people who labor in a tranquil autumn harvest scene. The abundance and harmony of their lives reflect the compassion of their ruler, the Emperor Tenji (626-672) who composed the poem. It reads:

In the autumn fields
the hut, the temporary hut,
its thatch is rough
and so the sleeves of my robe
are dampened night by night with dew.

Translation of poem by Joshua S. Mostow (Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin isshu in Word and Image [Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996]