The Floating World Takes Shape

Suzuki Harunobu

Woman Admiring Plum Blossoms at Night

c. 1766

Woodblock print with embossing; ink and color on paper, 32.4 × 21 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A young woman raises a lantern to plum blossoms in the dark, an old theme of East Asian verse.

• The stylized cloud at top recalls the court art of the Heian period.
• His elite merchant and samurai buyers admired Kyoto's literary past.
• Blind embossing (karazuri) raises uncolored areas, like her socks and inner robes.

Heian

The era of 794–1185, when the imperial court flourished in Kyoto.

Image: The Met Open Access · Public domain (Met Open Access)