Shingen and Kenshin, from the series "Mirrors of Warriors in Fashionable Parodies (Furyu yatsushi musha kagami)"

From Koryusai's series Furyu yatsushi musha kagami (Mirrors of Warriors in Fashionable Parodies), held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to about 1769, this chuban print stages a parody of the famous duel between the sixteenth-century daimyo Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin at the Battle of Kawanakajima. The yatsushi parody convention, central to mitate-e of the period, transposed canonical historical or literary scenes into contemporary Edo fashion, with the great warriors recast as elegantly dressed young men or even as bijin in the costumes of the day. Koryusai's samurai-class origins gave him a particular fluency with this convention, allowing him to play the iconography of warrior valor against the soft palette and slim figure types of An'ei-era bijin-ga. The series stands as one of his most successful sustained engagements with the mitate genre and offers a useful counterpoint to the courtesan and genre prints that dominate his oeuvre.