Retuning Sails at Shinagawa

Returning Sails at Shinagawa is a Suzuki Harunobu print documented through ukiyo-e.org from the Art Institute of Chicago. The title transposes the classical Chinese landscape topos of "returning sails" - one of the canonical Eight Views of Xiao and Xiang - to Shinagawa, the bayside post-town at the southern edge of Edo whose harbor, brothels, and teahouses made it one of the most frequented points of departure and return in the city's geography. By matching the elite Chinese theme to a familiar Edo locale, the design participates in the genre of mitate-e (elegant parody) in which Harunobu and his contemporaries refracted continental tradition through the floating world. The print is realized in the polychrome nishiki-e technique that defines Harunobu's mature work. Soft blues for the bay, muted browns for the architecture of the post-town, and pale tones for the figures who occupy the foreground are brought into careful registration on hosho paper, so that the simultaneous presence of distant boats and nearby beauties can be read as a single, layered composition. In keeping with his contribution to Edo bijin-ga, the figures are likely to be members of the floating world rather than incidental passers-by, and their slender, idealized proportions follow the type he helped establish. The image is accessible through ukiyo-e.org at ukiyo-e.org/image/aic/88959_428092 as Returning Sails at Shinagawa by Suzuki Harunobu in the Art Institute of Chicago.