Visiting the Shrine of Enmei Jizo, from the series "Eight Precincts of Kinryuzan Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kinruzan hakkei)"

Visiting the Shrine of Enmei Jizo, from Torii Kiyonaga's series Eight Precincts of Kinryuzan Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kinruzan hakkei), is dated to about 1777 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago. Enmei Jizo - 'life-extending Jizo' - was one of several auxiliary deities within the great Asakusa Kannon complex, a small but well-frequented stop on the route through the temple grounds. Kiyonaga uses the visit as an opportunity to combine devotional incident with the kind of urban observation his Edo bijin-ga would soon make central. The figures stand and kneel before the shrine in attitudes of restrained piety, but their costumes, hairstyles, and accessories are unmistakably current, transforming the act of prayer into a slice of contemporary Asakusa life. The series belongs to the broader late-eighteenth-century fashion for adapting the classical Chinese 'eight views' tradition to Edo's own famous places, and Kiyonaga's contribution shows how the Torii school adapted to that interest while keeping figures - not topography alone - as the carriers of meaning. Block printing in the soft palette characteristic of the late 1770s lets the wooden architecture recede, while careful gradation and the steady contour line that becomes his signature anchor the worshippers in the foreground. The Art Institute of Chicago's holdings of the Kinryuzan hakkei series demonstrate Kiyonaga's importance as a young Torii school designer mapping bijin-ga onto Asakusa's most familiar precincts.