Ono no Komachi by the Waterfall (Shimizu), from the series The Seven Fashionable Aspects of Komachi (Furyu yatsushi nana Komachi)

Ono no Komachi by the Waterfall (Shimizu) is a sheet from Suzuki Harunobu's series The Seven Fashionable Aspects of Komachi, which selects seven episodes from the legendary life of the Heian poetess Ono no Komachi and reimagines them as scenes from Edo daily life. The Shimizu episode draws on the Noh play Sotoba Komachi or related traditions in which Komachi is associated with pure water; Harunobu transforms the moment into a young woman pausing near a small waterfall, perhaps to drink, wash, or simply admire the sound. The waterfall is rendered in fine white lines against carefully graded blue, demonstrating the careful color separation that defined his Edo bijin-ga. The figure herself wears contemporary Edo robes whose patterns testify to the textile fashions of the mid-1760s, layering the classical reference with a fashionable surface that customers could appreciate even without knowing the legend in detail. As an artist instrumental in the rise of nishiki-e, Suzuki Harunobu used the Komachi series to argue that classical literature and modern fashion belonged in the same conversation, an argument his prints made physically by binding both into a single registered image. The series is among his most influential works, helping to standardize the mitate format that other ukiyo-e artists would adopt. Source: Art Institute of Chicago, no. 20861.