Dressing the Hair for New Years Day

New Year's Day hairdressing subjects, depicting a woman arranging her hair in preparation for the year's first formal observances, occupied several notable woodblock artists during the early Showa period. Domoto's version within the bijin-ga genre is distinguished by his training as a nihonga painter, which would have oriented the composition toward measured line quality and tonal harmony rather than the softened romanticism favored in commercial shin-hanga production. The woman's elaborate formal coiffure, likely dressed with kanzashi ornaments appropriate for the season, would be rendered through fine-line carving on the key block, while the kimono provides the print's primary color structure. Accessories such as a lacquered comb box or mirror stand would supply supporting compositional elements. As a portrait type, this subject belongs to the kamiage or hair-dressing category within bijin-ga, a convention with precedents in both Edo-period ukiyo-e and the Meiji-era revival prints that immediately preceded the shin-hanga movement.