Evening Snow on a Floss Shaper (Nurioke no bosetsu), from the series "Eight Views of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei)"
c. 1766
Medium
Color woodblock print; chuban
Dimensions
28.7 × 21.6 cm (11 1/4 × 8 1/2 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
88977
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The famous series Eight Views of the Parlor was produced in 1766, around the time of the emergence of full-color prints in Japan. The series contains eight prints that were housed together in a fanciful wrapper, all of which are now in the Art Institute’s collection. These scenes present visual puns based on well-known themes of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers in China, each of which has its own poetic title. For Evening Snow, Suzuki Harunobu depicted silk floss as snow and the floss shaper as the mou...
About the Artist
Suzuki Harunobu · 1725–1770
Suzuki Harunobu (c. 1725-1770) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist who revolutionized woodblock printing by developing nishiki-e—full-color prints using multiple woodblocks—in 1765. Before Harunobu, Japanese prints were limited to two or three colors; his innovation unleashed the entire artist's palette, transforming ukiyo-e into the vibrant art form that would later captivate Western artists from Manet...