Woman Digging Bamboo Shoots in the Snow, or Parody of Meng Zong (Mōsō), from Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety
Suzuki Harunobu Japanese
Not on view
Harunobu treated a popular paragon theme with great innovation here, applying the playfully subversive spirit of ukiyo-e to the story of Meng Zong (J.: Mōsō), a boy whose filial piety prompted heaven to cause the sprouting of spring bamboo shoots in the dead of winter for his ill mother. The story is incorporated in a New Year's calendar print of bijin, or beautiful women. Combining a popular subject with the associations of a holiday, he made the virtuous theme entertaining to a general Edo audience.
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