The Wrestling Match (parody of Ushikawamaru and Benkei)

The Wrestling Match (parody of Ushikawamaru and Benkei), a 1762 chuban print by Suzuki Harunobu in the Art Institute of Chicago, applies the mitate strategy of Edo ukiyo-e to one of the most beloved confrontations in medieval Japanese legend. The story of Ushiwakamaru (the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune) overpowering the giant warrior-monk Benkei on Gojo Bridge in Kyoto - in which a slender, agile youth defeats a hulking opponent through skill and grace - was a staple of Noh, kabuki, and ukiyo-e through the early modern period. Harunobu reduces the warrior epic to a chuban-format domestic episode by recasting the combatants as a pair of contemporary Edo figures. The 'wrestling match' is no longer a sword duel but a playful struggle - perhaps two women, perhaps a child and an adult, perhaps lovers in mock combat - whose poses and physical engagement quote the classical original even as the costumes, hairstyles, and proportions belong entirely to Suzuki Harunobu's present. This double reading is the whole pleasure of Edo ukiyo-e mitate: the canonical scene authenticates the contemporary one, while the contemporary scene defuses any seriousness in the classical reference. Although produced in 1762, three years before Harunobu's role in the full nishiki-e breakthrough of 1765, the print already demonstrates the spatial clarity that would soon make his designs models for the entire Edo print industry. The Art Institute's impression captures Harunobu's habit of making epic intimate - shrinking medieval combat to a chuban bijin-ga interlude.