The Evening Wind-bell

On a summer veranda a wind-bell hangs from the eaves while two women and a small child settle into the cool of the evening. Lines of poetry run across the open sky above them, printed as part of the design. The subject is one quiet moment, the kind of seasonal scene the kyōka poets liked to attach their verses to. Kitao Masanobu, Kyōden's name as an artist, sets the figures low and gives the upper half of the sheet to greenery and words. Picture and poem occupy a single surface and are meant to be taken together. That habit, text and image sharing the page rather than facing each other across it, runs straight through to the illustrated books that made his name.