A Selection of Six Flowers - A Parody Rokkasen (Yatsushi rokkasen): Bishop Henjo

A Selection of Six Flowers - A Parody Rokkasen (Yatsushi rokkasen): Bishop Henjo, dated 1793 in the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of Chōbunsai Eishi's later returns to the Rokkasen mitate. Bishop Henjo, a prominent early Heian poet-priest, is here cast as a contemporary Edo beauty, the yatsushi mode signaled by emblematic details such as monastic attribute or quoted verse while the surface remains a portrait of bijin-ga. The Chobunsai school treatment is unmistakable in the elongated proportions of the figure, the long sustained contour lines, and the restrained palette that places weight on patterned textile and cartouche. Eishi's training under the Kano master Eisen'in Michinobu before his turn to ukiyo-e lent his work a spatial composure that suits the literary mitate framework, and his samurai-class education prepared him to handle classical reference with confidence. By 1793 Eishi had consolidated his place as the leading designer of refined bijin-ga in Edo, his cool aristocratic register a distinct alternative to the heated theatricality of contemporaries such as Kitagawa Utamaro. The Yatsushi rokkasen series allowed him to revisit familiar literary material with the assurance of his mature style, building on the earlier Furyu yatsushi rokkasen of the late 1780s. The Art Institute of Chicago records the impression's 1793 date and confirms its place within this important series of literary mitate.