Lovers Playing the Same Fute (parody of Xuanzong and Yang Guifei)

This 1762 chuban print by Suzuki Harunobu offers a mitate of the famous Tang romance of Emperor Xuanzong and the consort Yang Guifei, whose musical intimacy and ultimate tragedy were among the most celebrated subjects of East Asian literary and pictorial tradition. Harunobu translates the imperial couple into a pair of contemporary Edo lovers, who lean toward one another to play a single flute, or fute, an emblem of shared breath and shared feeling. The image's wit lies in the layering of references: the lofty Tang court is mapped onto a small Edo interior, and the moral and tragic register of the classical love story is given a quieter, more immediate inflection. As with many of Harunobu's mitate-e, the print rewards viewers who can read the classical allusion, a kind of literacy actively cultivated within the kyoka poetry circles of his patrons. The slim figure type and the carefully coordinated patterns of kimono are characteristic of mid-1760s chuban bijin-ga, and the spare interior allows the visual emphasis to rest on the shared instrument and the joined gestures of the lovers. Made several years before the 1765 breakthrough of full-color nishiki-e, the design demonstrates Harunobu's mastery of color planning. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression, providing scholars and admirers of Suzuki Harunobu a particularly clear example of how Edo ukiyo-e could re-engage Tang romance within the intimate frame of a single chuban sheet.