"Ho": Yatsuhashi Bridge in Mikawa Province, from the series "Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari)"

Katsukawa Shunsho · c. 1772/73

Medium

Color woodblock print; koban

Original size

22.8 × 16.1 cm (8 15/16 × 6 5/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

This delicate koban-format print captures one of the most celebrated episodes from the tenth-century Japanese classic *Tales of Ise* — the traveller pausing at the eight-plank bridge of Yatsuhashi, surrounded by blooming irises in the marshy lowlands of Mikawa Province. Katsukawa Shunsho was best known in Edo-period Japan for his kabuki actor prints, but this series reveals his quieter, more lyrical register. Working within the nishiki-e polychrome tradition, he layered colours with precision and restraint, using the small koban format to concentrate attention on mood rather than spectacle. The result is intimate rather than theatrical — figures and landscape held in careful balance. The Yatsuhashi iris scene was already a cultural touchstone by Shunsho's time, having inspired poems, lacquerwork, and textile designs for centuries. Its continuing presence in Edo popular art reflected both literary nostalgia and genuine affection for the image of the lone traveller composing verse far from home. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Shunsho's composed colour relationships and refined line into the warmth and texture of paint on canvas, letting a work that has lived behind museum glass become something you can actually live with.