"Ru": Northern Province, from the series "Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari)"

Designed by Katsukawa Shunsho around 1767, this color woodblock print 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 Ru is keyed to an episode set in a northern province, drawing on the long thread in Ise Monogatari of travel poems that follow Ariwara no Narihira and other courtiers eastward from the capital. The classical original treats the northern landscapes as scenes of exile, distance, and seasonal poignancy, and Shunsho's design carries these associations into the contemporary idiom of Edo ukiyo-e. Figures wear stylish current robes rather than archaeologically reconstructed Heian dress, and the setting is suggested through restrained printed grounds. The relatively new technology of full-color nishiki-e printing allowed Shunsho and his publisher to register patterned textiles and seasonal atmosphere across the multiple woodblock impressions. Although he would soon transform yakusha-e through the rise of the Katsukawa school, his work on the Ise Monogatari series confirms his ease with literary subject matter. The print is preserved in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it forms part of a substantial sequence from the series and documents Shunsho's contribution to Edo's literary nishiki-e culture of the 1760s.