No. 2: Chinese boys copying paintings and writing Japanese, from the series "Children Say 'This is Japan!' and Imitate the Games They See in Picturebooks (Yodo iu koitsu wa Nippon, ezoshi o mite yori sono gai ni asobu)"

Designed by Torii Kiyonaga in 1786 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this print is the second sheet in the series Children Say 'This is Japan!' and Imitate the Games They See in Picturebooks (Yodo iu koitsu wa Nippon, ezoshi o mite yori sono gai ni asobu). The composition shows Chinese boys copying paintings and writing Japanese characters, staging a humorous reversal in which continental children take Japanese picture books as their model for play and learning. The conceit allowed Kiyonaga to indulge his interest in detailed genre observation, depicting the implements of brush culture, model sheets, and group concentration with the clear contours that defined Torii school draftsmanship in the late eighteenth century. Although best known for Edo bijin-ga, Torii Kiyonaga produced a substantial body of children's subjects and instructive prints in the 1780s, where he applied the same elongated, gracefully poised figural type to youthful sitters. The series title gently mocks Edo's appetite for chinoiserie and shows Kiyonaga's willingness to engage contemporary publishing trends, including the saturation of the picture-book market with both domestic and foreign-themed material. As head of the Torii school, Kiyonaga used such designs to broaden the lineage's repertoire beyond kabuki signboards, demonstrating that the school's draftsmanship could handle multi-figure genre scenes with the same control he brought to standing beauties. The Art Institute of Chicago's catalogue records the work as a color woodblock print in the oban format, characteristic of Kiyonaga's mature output. Studied today, the sheet documents both his range and the Edo public's fascination with prints that mirrored the act of looking at pictures itself.