Cooling Off in the Evening at Shijogawara

Cooling Off in the Evening at Shijogawara, a Torii Kiyonaga design dated to about 1779 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, captures one of the great summer customs of Kyoto. Each evening from the late spring through early autumn, riverside teahouses along the Shijogawara - the broad bed of the Kamo River near Shijo Street - extended wooden platforms over the water, and patrons gathered there to escape the day's heat. Kiyonaga, a designer of the Torii school based in Edo, places his characteristic tall, gracefully proportioned beauties on one such platform, looking out across the water. Although his Edo [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) is best known for Yoshiwara and the Sumida, this Kyoto subject demonstrates the range of his interests in 1779, when his style was acquiring the calm, expansive presentation that would define the early 1780s. The composition emphasizes the long, low horizontal of the platform and the cool space between it and the river, allowing the figures to take an unforced, conversational arrangement. Restrained block printing in summer blues and pale tones underscores the breezy theme, while the textile patterns of the women's robes mark the print's continued allegiance to the bijin-ga interest in dress. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, the sheet shows how the Torii school's leading designer expanded the iconography of seasonal leisure beyond his own city to encompass one of Japan's most celebrated summer rituals.