Poem by Chosui, from the series "Five Fashionable Colors of Ink (Furyu goshiki-zumi)"

Suzuki Harunobu's 'Poem by Chosui,' from the series Five Fashionable Colors of Ink (Furyu goshiki-zumi), dates to about 1763 and is a characteristically inventive example of literary parody in Edo bijin-ga. The series title plays on the East Asian tradition of recognizing 'five colours' within high-quality black ink (sumi), an idea derived from Chinese painting theory in which a skilled brush can suggest a full chromatic range with monochrome alone. By prefixing the phrase with furyu ('fashionable'), Harunobu announces that the series is a modern, witty reapplication of the conceit, in which each sheet is keyed to a particular poem and rendered in the contemporary mode of bijin-ga. The Art Institute of Chicago, the museum source for this record, dates the impression to about 1763, situating it on the immediate threshold of the full polychrome nishiki-e revolution of 1765 in which Suzuki Harunobu played a critical role. Even before that technical breakthrough, the print already demonstrates the artist's signature visual qualities: confidently elongated figures, calmly balanced compositions, and a careful relationship between figure and ground. For collectors of Suzuki Harunobu, the Furyu goshiki-zumi series is an important document of how the artist mediated between the prestige of classical Chinese ink-painting theory and the popular, commercial world of Edo woodblock printing, turning learned literary references into accessible, eminently collectible images of contemporary women.