Society Finches (Jushimatsu)

Society Finches (Jushimatsu), held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to the 1790s, is a color woodblock print in oban format that demonstrates Kitao Masayoshi's gifts as an observer of birds. The jushimatsu, or society finch, is a popular domesticated cage bird in Japan, prized for its sociability and its capacity to live in groups (the name literally evokes "ten or so finches together"). The print shows the birds in the close, slightly comic groupings that earned them their name, with Masayoshi rendering plumage, posture, and small interactions in the kind of compact, decorative composition that became a hallmark of his work. Single-sheet kacho-e (bird-and-flower prints) of this kind formed an established category in late Edo print culture, and Masayoshi's contribution carries the distinctive Kitao-school combination of careful naturalistic observation with the gentle wit that would soon define his sketch-album work. This print is also one of the earlier independent works in which we can see Masayoshi anticipating the formal interests of his later Choju ryakugashiki (Abbreviated Pictures of Birds and Animals) of 1797, in which he treats the avian world with comparable economy and delight. The Art Institute's holding of this print preserves an important example of Edo bird-and-flower printmaking outside the more famous tradition of Hiroshige and Hokusai.