Daikokuten, from the series "The Seven Gods of Good Luck in Modern Life (Tosei Shichi Fukujin)"

Suzuki Harunobu's Daikokuten, from his series The Seven Gods of Good Luck in Modern Life (Tosei Shichi Fukujin), is dated 1764 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago. The series reimagines the venerable Seven Gods of Good Luck, popular figures in Japanese folk Buddhism, as participants in everyday Edo urban life. Daikokuten, the god of wealth and household prosperity, is traditionally depicted with his trademark bag, mallet, and rice bales; here he is recast in the contemporary idiom of mid-eighteenth-century Edo, embodied by figures who carry his attributes into a recognizably modern setting. By placing the lucky god within the world of stylish urban beauties, Harunobu performs a characteristic mitate that compresses sacred iconography into the elegant social tableau of his Edo bijin-ga. The composition is balanced and economical, with Daikokuten's identifying objects strategically placed so that viewers attuned to popular religion can recognize the source. The slender proportions, soft modeling, and patterned kimono are unmistakably Harunobu's, and the careful color harmonies anticipate the polychrome refinement that the nishiki-e revolution of 1765 would soon make standard. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this impression among its extensive Harunobu holdings, where it documents how Suzuki Harunobu used ukiyo-e woodblock printing to bring the lucky gods into intimate contact with the visual life of Edo's affluent urbanites, turning beneficent divinities into stylish neighbors who quietly bless the daily rhythms of the city.