Man chasing bird

Held by the MFA Boston, this lively design departs from Shūchō's familiar [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) register to depict a male figure in mid-pursuit of a flying bird — most likely a humorous genre vignette of the kind that punctuated late-Edo print output. The chase compositions, in which a figure lunges toward an escaping object (a hat carried off by wind, a kite snapping its string, a sparrow taking flight), gave designers a chance to picture the body in active diagonal extension, breaking up the more static frontality of standard bijin-ga and providing the print-buying public with a flash of comic energy. Shūchō handles the subject with the same restrained line he brings to his female figures: the man's pose is dynamic but not exaggerated, his kimono caught mid-motion, the bird drawn small and high to define the upward arc of the action. The print sits within the MFA's broad Tamagawa Shūchō holdings and is one of the sheets that records the artist's range beyond the courtesan-and-attendant template that dominated the late-Kansei market.