Takata, from the series "Ten Summer Scenes in Edo (Edo natsu jikkei)"

Takata, from Torii Kiyonaga's series Ten Summer Scenes in Edo (Edo natsu jikkei), is held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to about 1782. Takata, located in the northwestern outskirts of the city, was known for its open fields, woods, and the seasonal entertainments of suburban summer - cool evenings, archery contests, and tea served beneath the trees. Kiyonaga uses the location to extend his Edo bijin-ga beyond the inner city into the suburbs that ringed it, placing tall, gracefully proportioned women within a landscape of low trees and grass. The composition gives the figures a measured spacing along the path, their parasols and fans suggesting the slow rhythm of a hot day, while the depth is handled with restrained gradation rather than bold perspectival devices. As leader of the Torii school by this date, Kiyonaga had developed a way of treating outdoor scenes that draws on the workshop's old expertise in clear, theater-ready staging, with each figure legible against the ground. Block printing of the early 1780s, with its careful overprinting of multiple subdued tones, supports both the cool greens of the suburban landscape and the patterned textiles of the women's robes. The series Ten Summer Scenes in Edo as a whole is a notable demonstration of how Kiyonaga's mature Edo bijin-ga mapped urban manners onto the rim of the city, and the Takata sheet at the Art Institute of Chicago is a representative instance.