The New Year’s Scene at Nihonbashi incorporates many of Kiyonaga’s innovations, and is strongly representative of the style he developed throughout his work. This style was highly naturalistic, and has often been described as being, of all ukiyo-e masters, most Greek:
The Greeks accorded equal value to the spirit and the flesh alike, believing that supreme beauty was manifested in the healthy life that gave both these aspects of humanity equal due; and that same ideal applies perfectly to the tall, slender, astonishingly sculpturesque figures that inhabit the world of Kiyonaga’s prints. (Narazaki, p. 20)

This ideal is manifested powerfully in Three Wandering Monks, which depicts three women dressed as itinerant beggar-priests. They are elongated, stretched to the full height of the oban sheet, and radiate a calm elegance. All three women are at peace, focusing on the one playing her bamboo flute, undistracted and thoughtful.
An unfortunate by-product of their ethereal grace is a certain inapproachability that allows the viewer to appreciate and admire the women, but not to identify with them. The comparison of Kiyonaga to the Greek artists is apt, for the pale and willowy women for which he is famous often stand detached from the viewers or each other, as inaccessible as marble statues.

The calmness of the Three Wandering Monks pervades Kiyonaga’s work. Even his prints of the pleasure districts generally avoid the frenetic activity captured by other printmakers. He shows courtesans taking their repose during the day, as in one especially charming print, Snowy Morning in the Yoshiwara. In this print, snow has fallen the night before, and the inhabitants of the pleasure house venture forth in wonder to enjoy it. Though Kiyonaga does not put as much expression into their faces as, say, Sharaku, their bodies tell enough, from the curious hunch of the shoulders of the girl engrossed in the plum blossoms, to the relaxed posture of the girl inside leaning against a table with her bowl of sake.

This print is an excellent example of one of Kiyonaga’s most important contribution to the world of printmaking: the use of multiple sheets of paper to create a single image. The compositional difficulties any artist must face while setting up a picture are more than doubled when using multiple sheets of paper. Each sheet must be interesting and well laid-out in its own right, with its own story and cast of characters, but it must also complement its companion sheet and contribute to the image as a whole. Snowy Morning masterfully separates the two parties of women on their respective sheets, each sheet remaining balanced, while integrating the two by means of the roofline, the fence, and the porch corner which cross the divide between sheets. The image as a whole displays the Japanese asymmetrical aesthetic, with the darker, crowded, geometric indoor scene on the right traveling through the doorway to the light, open, organic outdoor scene on the left. The New Year’s Scene and Snowy Morning are diptychs, but Kiyonaga was known to compose scenes from up to five sheets of paper.

Given his mastery at composition, it is not surprising that Kiyonaga became so adept at integrating foreground action with background scenery, as in Gathering Shellfish at Low Tide from the Twelve Months in the South series. This scene takes place in Shinagawa, the unlicensed pleasure quarters at the entrance of Edo. Tall women stand at either side of a large picture window looking out over many small groups of fishermen, forming a natural frame for the scene outside. There is a dramatic contrast between the lives of fishermen who must live according to the ebb and flow of the tides in order to make their living, and a young man who can afford to spend the afternoon in the company of six beautiful women, but they are re-integrated when we consider that the inhabitants and patrons of the pleasure houses may well be eating the fish that these fishermen catch. It is a mark of Kiyonaga’s strength as an artist that he presents these two side of Edo life and combines them to present a complete picture, as complete as his perfectly integrated compositions.