Page 389 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

cat. 247
Suzuki Harunobu,
Daifeokuten as a Woman, 1765,
color woodblock print,
24.8x19.1 (9 3/4x772),
Tokyo National Museum

cat. 248
Suzuki Harunobu,
Ebisu as a Young Man, 1765,
color woodblock print,
3
26 x 19.8 (lo'Ax 7 A),
Tokyo National Museum,
388 Important Art Object

in an intriguing universe of complex lyricism. Borrowing from ancient poetry anthologies, he included
poems in many of his prints that often have no relation to the image except to add an aura of poesy,
nostalgia, and elegance.
Having first relied on private commissions to produce polychrome prints, Harunobu's publishers
reissued many of his designs in commercial editions, which enjoyed great popularity. The artist is
at his best in his scene of a young woman making a pilgrimage to a shrine on a rainy night (cat. 249), or
in his images of youths on veranda, which let us spy on intensely private moments (cats. 250, 251). In
the latter, a maid watches the scene on the veranda through a crack in the sliding doors as a woman
draws closer to a young man. The artist has cleverly placed the viewer of the print in the same posi-
tion as the maid, that of a voyeur.
Harunobu plays with the viewer's emotions as he creates such visual haiku of sensual experi-
ences. No doubt he and his publishers were fully aware that images of this type relied on their ability to
tease and tantalize — both in erotic suggestiveness and pure aesthetic delight — but not to completely
satisfy. As many modern aficionados of ukiyoe prints have discovered, there is greater delight in viewing
prints as a series than in trying to understand the artist's intent in a single image.
Mention should be made of another conspicuous aspect of Harunobu's figures — the generally

effeminate characteristics of the males. At first glance it is difficult to tell in the scene of lovers on the
veranda that the figure on the left is a man (cat. 251). Only the small shaven section of his pate reveals
19
his gender: he wears the forelocks of a young male. The term bijin, which literally means "beautiful
person," can be used as a tag of approbation for both men and women, but still, in the genre of bijinga,
individual paintings of elegant young men are quite rare.