"No," from the series "Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari)"

This color woodblock print by Katsukawa Shunsho, made about 1767, is part of the series Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures, Furyu Nishiki-e Ise Monogatari, organised by the syllables of the Japanese phonetic order. The syllable No identifies this particular sheet within the cycle, which retells episodes from the classical narrative Ise Monogatari, a tenth-century anthology of poems and short prose passages associated with the courtier-poet Ariwara no Narihira. Shunsho's design transposes the Heian source into the fashionable visual language of mid-Edo ukiyo-e, dressing figures in current robes and arranging them with a quiet, decorative restraint. Newly available full-color nishiki-e printing techniques allowed the design to register subtle gradations in costume pattern and seasonal mood, making each sheet a small showcase of the recent technical advances pioneered by Edo publishers. While Shunsho would soon be celebrated for transforming yakusha-e through the rise of the Katsukawa school, his work on the Ise Monogatari cycle reveals his fluency with classical literature and elite taste. The sheet is preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it documents how Shunsho participated in the production of a luxury literary series that drew together poetic learning, contemporary fashion, and the experimental printing methods that defined the late 1760s in Edo.