Sunset Glow at Seta (Seta sekisho), from the series "Eight Views of Omi (Omi hakkei no uchi)"

Suzuki Harunobu's "Sunset Glow at Seta (Seta sekisho)," from the series "Eight Views of Omi (Omi hakkei no uchi)," dated about 1760 in the Art Institute of Chicago's records, belongs to the artist's mitate-e treatment of the celebrated Eight Views of Lake Biwa. "Sunset Glow at Seta" is identified in the canon with the long wooden bridge at the southern end of the lake and with the light of late afternoon falling across the water. Harunobu, following Edo ukiyo-e tradition, treats the topographic theme as a pretext for picturing slender, fashionable women whose poses and robes signal both the season and the time of day. The figures carry the elongated proportions and small features that mark his chuban bijin-ga, while the Seta bridge or its symbolic equivalent supplies the graphic anchor of the composition. As one of the principal architects of nishiki-e, the full-color "brocade print" technique that revolutionized Edo printmaking around 1765, Suzuki Harunobu used multiple precisely registered woodblocks to layer the soft oranges, pinks, and grays that suggest the dimming sunset light. The chuban format keeps the scene intimate. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this impression among its substantial Harunobu holdings, where the print exemplifies the artist's ability to overlay classical landscape geography with the contemporary urban beauty of 1760s Edo.