Archery (Sha), from the series "Informal Versions of the Six Accomplishments in the Floating World (Ukiyoe rikugei ryaku)"

Archery (Sha), from the 1768 series Informal Versions of the Six Accomplishments in the Floating World (Ukiyoe rikugei ryaku), translates the classical Confucian liu yi — rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy and arithmetic — into scenes drawn from Edo's pleasure quarters and townhouses. Isoda Koryusai, then in the early flush of his collaboration with the nishiki-e publishers gathered around Suzuki Harunobu, designs the archery sheet not around a samurai at the practice range but around a fashionable young woman drawing a small bow inside an interior. The mitate works on two levels: the woman's posture quotes the disciplined stance of formal kyudo, while the playful, miniaturised bow and arrow reposition the accomplishment within the realm of indoor amusement and erotic suggestion. This sort of layered allusion would become a signature of Koryusai's Edo bijin-ga and prepare the ground for his great fashion-plate cycle, Hinagata Wakana no Hatsumoyo, in which Yoshiwara courtesans pose in elaborate seasonal kosode. The Art Institute of Chicago impression (object 86910) shows the chuban-format sheet in soft pinks, ochres and faded indigo, with the keyblock providing the clean, slightly mannered line typical of Koryusai's Meiwa-era output. The series as a whole demonstrates how the new full-colour print medium could carry sophisticated literary games into the home of the merchant collector, recasting Chinese classical learning as the everyday repertoire of the floating world and confirming Koryusai's position alongside Harunobu as one of the principal designers of refined polychrome prints in late 1760s Edo. Source: Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/artworks/86910.