Act IV (Yondanme), from the series "Perspective Pictures of the Storehouse of Loyal Retainers (Uki-e kanadehon Chushingura)"

Act IV (Yondanme) of Kanadehon Chushingura, in Kitao Masayoshi's perspective-picture series held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to circa 1791-1794, presents the gravest moment in the entire narrative: the seppuku of Lord Enya Hangan and the loyal retainer Oishi Yuranosuke's arrival to find his master already dying. The horizontal o-oban color woodblock print uses one-point perspective to organize the formal interior space of Hangan's residence, with the assembled witnesses and the kneeling lord arranged within a geometrically receding architectural envelope. Masayoshi treats the scene with the restrained gravity it demands, balancing the disciplined perspectival lines against the heavy emotional weight of the ritual suicide. This print stands at the dramatic center of the series, providing the motive that will drive the remaining acts and the eventual vendetta. The Art Institute's holding of the complete series allows scholars to trace Masayoshi's compositional choices act by act, and Act IV is among the most architecturally ambitious of the set. The work testifies to Masayoshi's command of the uki-e mode in the years just before he began the ryakugashiki sketch-album project that would secure his later reputation.