Evening Snow at Ikenohata (Ikenohata bosetsu), from the series "Eight Views of Prosperity in the Eastern Village (Azuma no sato eiga hakkei)"

From Koryusai's series Azuma no sato eiga hakkei (Eight Views of Prosperity in the Eastern Village), held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to about 1770 to 1772, this chuban print represents Evening Snow at Ikenohata, one of the canonical eight views applied to the eastern (Edo) landscape. Ikenohata, the area along the western shore of Shinobazu Pond near Ueno, was one of Edo's most fashionable poetic sites, and the Evening Snow theme drew on the Chinese Xiao and Xiang precedent of winter evening landscape. Koryusai populates the snow-bound pond shore with fashionable Edo figures, using bijin to anchor what would otherwise be a pure topographical study. The hakkei (eight views) convention, transposed from Chinese poetic landscape to Edo topography, gave Koryusai one of his most sustained vehicles for combining seasonal, geographic, and bijin-ga subject matter into a single integrated series.