Chrysanthemum Boy

Chrysanthemum Boy, dated 1796 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of Kitagawa Utamaro's prints centered on a child, in this case associated with the chrysanthemum motif of the autumn ninth-month festival of Choyo, when long-life wishes were exchanged and chrysanthemums were prominently displayed. The 'chrysanthemum boy' (kikujido) is also a classical legendary figure, a Taoist child of immortality who lives among chrysanthemums in a mountain dale; Utamaro plays on these layered associations by casting a contemporary Edo child in the role, blending mitate parody with sentimental child portraiture. As elsewhere in his ukiyo-e, soft round faces and abbreviated patterning describe the figure with affectionate economy, while restrained background gives full attention to the child and the flower. Although the most famous Edo bijin-ga focuses on adult women, prints like this remind us that Utamaro applied the same observational care to children, and that his late-1790s practice systematically extended the conventions of the bijin-ga portrait to the inhabitants of the household more broadly.