"I": Coming of Age, from the series "Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari)"

Plate I, Coming of Age, from Katsukawa Shunsho's series Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari) illustrates the opening episode of the tenth-century Ise monogatari, in which the young protagonist celebrates his coming of age and writes his first love poem on the sleeve of a hunting robe. Held in the Art Institute of Chicago and produced in the late 1760s, the plate inaugurates the iroha-ordered series with one of the most famous scenes in classical Japanese literature. Shunsho updates the Heian setting in the furyu manner of mid-Edo ukiyo-e, presenting the youth in contemporary kimono and placing him in an interior recognizable to his Edo audience. The series is among Shunsho's notable early ventures in nishiki-e, the full-color brocade printing technique perfected in Edo around 1765, and the suite demonstrates the range of his Katsukawa school practice beyond the yakusha-e on which his fame chiefly rested. Coming of age, with its evocation of literary tradition, calligraphic skill, and the first stirring of erotic feeling, was a richly resonant subject for cultivated Edo viewers, and Shunsho's plate captures the moment with the elegant economy that characterizes the entire Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari. The Art Institute of Chicago holds an exceptional run of plates from the series, including this opening syllable.