The Fifth Month (Gogatsu), from the series "The Twelve Months (Juni toki)"

The Fifth Month (Gogatsu), from the series The Twelve Months (Juni toki), dated 1786 in the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of Chōbunsai Eishi's contributions to a calendar genre that [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) designers had cultivated since the early eighteenth century. Each sheet in such a series ties a month or season to an emblematic activity, plant, or festival, allowing the artist to combine portrait and almanac in a single composition. Gogatsu, the fifth lunar month, carried associations with the Boys' Festival, iris, and the early summer rains, and Eishi's design draws on these resonances to anchor his beauties in a recognizable seasonal moment. The Chobunsai school treatment is on full display: figures are drawn in the elongated proportions Eishi favored, contour lines are sustained in long calm curves, and color is held to a restrained palette so that the patterned textiles read clearly against the ground. His earlier training in the Kano studio of Eisen'in Michinobu gives the figures a measured spatial dignity uncommon in popular print design of the same date. The Juni toki framework allowed Eishi to organize his treatment of Edo [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) across the year, building a coherent visual catalogue of seasonal moods rather than a single isolated scene. The Art Institute of Chicago documents the impression's 1786 date and its place in the series, making it valuable for studying how Eishi navigated the conventions of calendar prints while sustaining his distinct refined idiom.