Returning Sails at Yabase (Yabase kihan), from the series "Fashionable Eight Views of Omi (Furyu Omi hakkei)"

Art Historical Context

Kikukawa Eizan’s *Returning Sails at Y (Yabase kihan)*, created around 1814–17, is a captivating color woodblock print from the *Fashionable Eight Views Omi (Furyu Omi hakkei)*. This oban-sized work (37.8 × 25.8 cm) reimagines the classic Eight Views of Omi—iconic landscapes around Lake Biwa in Japan’s Omi Province—through a stylish, contemporary lens popular in Edo-period ukiyo-e art. Eizan, a master of the late 18th- to early 19th-century ukiyo-e tradition, infuses the scene with elegant figures and poetic atmosphere, likely capturing boats gliding homeward at dusk against a serene waterscap...

About the Artist

Kikukawa Eizan · 1787–1867

Kikukawa Eizan (1787–1867), born Toshinobu Ōmiya in Edo (modern Tokyo), emerged as a pivotal figure in ukiyo-e woodblock printing during Japan's late Edo period. He began his training under his father, Eiji Kikugawa, a minor painter and fan maker in the Kanō school tradition, before advancing to study with Suzuki Nanrei of the Shijō school and the ukiyo-e artist Totoya Hokkei, a pupil of Katsushik...