The First Horseback Ride (Uma norizome), from the series "The Five Fashionable Days of Starting (Furyu go kotohajime)"

The First Horseback Ride (Uma norizome), from Isoda Koryusai's series The Five Fashionable Days of Starting (Furyu go kotohajime), dated 1768 and held at the Art Institute of Chicago, belongs to a refined cycle that updates the auspicious New Year ceremonies of first-doing — kotohajime — in elegant contemporary dress. Uma norizome refers to the ritual first horseback ride of the year, an event of particular importance to samurai households but absorbed into broader urban festivity during the Edo period. Koryusai treats the subject with the lyrical seriousness that distinguishes his finest furyu series, pairing the formality of ceremony with the chic, observed detail of Meiwa-era life. A youthful equestrian, attended by accompanying figures, encounters the disciplined symbolism of the year's first ride. The composition's careful spacing, controlled palette, and patient drawing of horse anatomy demonstrate Koryusai's deepening confidence in the multi-figure subjects that would underpin his subsequent Hinagata Wakana no Hatsumoyo courtesan series. Series like Furyu go kotohajime — designed to be read together as a sequence of auspicious starts — gave Edo ukiyo-e publishers a vehicle for tying seasonal calendar ritual to fashionable pictorial idiom, satisfying both decorative and commemorative impulses. The horse, an animal Koryusai handled with attention in numerous designs, anchors the right-hand portion of the composition while the human figures balance the left, producing a centered cadence appropriate to a ceremonial subject. As both a New Year piece and a chapter in a larger cycle, the print preserves Koryusai's particular ability to weave auspicious ritual into the visual fabric of Edo bijin-ga.