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Description
This set of small deluxe prints revisited many of the subjects and themes Chikanobu had depicted in earlier and larger formats. But where the "Chiyoda Inner Palace" or Chiyoda Ooku series of triptychs portrayed the shogun's private quarters where family members and concubine lived a sheltered life, this series appears to document the pleasures of well-to-do middle class who dressed in fine kimono and practiced certain refined activities such as arranging flowers, writing poems and enjoying with friends the first snowfall or hastuyuki or evening plum blossom viewing. The quality of line work in these images is weak in comparison with Chikanobu's designs from the 1890's and suggests that he may have lent his name to Matsuki's production without personally sketching the images. However the mood created by the series is in accord with Chikanobu's vision of domestic life in the late Edo Period. The midsummer festival of the Sanno Shrine (see Plate 205) included a procession of floats and neighborhood groups dressed in uniform costumes. In the background are the tops of two floats, one with the statue of a noh theater actor and another with two fishermen riding a boat above artificial waves. In the foreground are the umbrella tops of a group carrying a banner topped with flowers from the "Military, Farmers, Artisans and Merchants Schools? or Shi-No-Ko-Sho no gaku (gakko?). On the far side of the street, women quietly watch the parade from the second floor of a shop. On this side of the procession is an elaborately dressed couple, either mannequins on a float or celebrants in courtly clothing from an earlier era.
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