Two Girls Enjoying the Evening Cool in a Garden
c. 1765/70
Medium
Color woodblock print; chuban
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
47763
Art Historical Context
Suzuki Harunobu's *Two Girls Enjoying the Cool in a Garden*c. 1765/70) captures a serene moment of everyday elegance in Edo-period Japan. This color woodblock print, in the compact chuban format (roughly 7½ x 10 inches), two young women relaxing amid lush foliage, fanning themselves against the summer heat. Harunobu, a master of ukiyo-e—the "pictures of the floating world" genre celebrating fleeting pleasures—excelled at portraying bijin-ga, or images of beautiful women, with a tender, intimate touch that elevated ordinary scenes to poetic beauty. Harunobu's revolutionary achievement was pion...
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...