'Education along the way in the doctring of Hiyoku'

Held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, this print referred to in the museum's records as "Education along the way in the doctrine of Hiyoku" belongs to one of Kitagawa Utamaro's many series exploring lovers and the conventions of romantic discourse in Edo bijin-ga. The hiyoku, or paired-wing birds, were a venerable Chinese symbol of inseparable lovers, frequently invoked in Edo love poetry, kabuki, and printed fiction. Utamaro mined this iconography across multiple series, including "Hiyoku mon michiyuki shitate" (Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests), in which famous lovers are paired in stylized travel scenes. Whether this V&A sheet is taken from that series or another similarly themed group, the artist's command of doubled figures, intertwined sleeves, and intimate inclined heads belongs to his characteristic vocabulary for couples. Utamaro stands almost alone among ukiyo-e masters in the depth and variety of his treatment of lovers; whereas other artists tended to default to the formal interactions of courtesan and patron, he investigated the gestures, glances, and silences that link two people. The print thereby contributes to the V&A's strong holdings of late-Edo woodblock prints and to our understanding of how Utamaro adapted classical poetic motifs into the visual culture of the urban townspeople who consumed ukiyo-e in great quantity.