Priest Huiyuan (Eon Hōshi), from the series Three Laughers at Children's Playful Spirits (Kokei ni sanshō)

Kitagawa Utamaro designed Priest Huiyuan (Eon Hoshi) around 1802 as part of the series Three Laughers at Children's Playful Spirits (Kokei ni sansho), a witty parody of the Chinese Buddhist legend of the Tiger Glen at Mount Lu. In the classical story, the monk Huiyuan accompanied two friends so deep into conversation that he unwittingly crossed the boundary stream he had vowed never to pass, and all three burst into laughter. Utamaro relocates this scene of erudite mirth into the world of contemporary Edo bijin-ga, replacing the venerable Chinese sages with a beauty in the role of the priest and substituting playful children for the philosophical companions. The transformation lets Utamaro flatter the chaste idea of Buddhist friendship while inviting viewers to read the women and infants as charming stand-ins for the original trio. As in his finest ukiyo-e, the figures are built from confident, calligraphic outlines, with patterned textiles offset by passages of unprinted paper that emphasize gesture and glance. The Harvard Art Museums preserves this impression (object 208060), where it sits within a strong holding of mitate-e, or analogue pictures, that document how Utamaro and his publishers folded classical literature into the commercial bijin-ga market at the turn of the nineteenth century.