Yoshiwara, from the series "Eight Views of Edo (Koto hakkei)"

From his series Eight Views of Edo (Koto hakkei), this chuban color woodblock print at the Art Institute of Chicago depicts the Yoshiwara, Edo's licensed pleasure quarter. The Eight Views format is one of the most enduring conceits in East Asian landscape art, descending from the medieval Chinese Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. By transposing the format to Edo and inserting the Yoshiwara among canonical scenic places like Shinobazu Pond, Shuncho elevates the pleasure quarter to the same poetic register as a famous mountain or river view, a move characteristic of how ukiyo-e treated the licensed district. The chuban (medium oban) format, slightly smaller than the standard oban, suited the series structure by allowing eight prints to be issued at a manageable price point. The composition combines the architectural specificity of the Yoshiwara's main thoroughfare with the fashionable courtesans and attendants who were the quarter's commercial protagonists.