Hairdressing

This title points to a traditional domestic scene of hair styling, a subject treated in ukiyo-e from the eighteenth century onward — Utamaro's bijin-ga frequently included women at their toilette, combing or arranging their hair. A twentieth-century mokuhanga treatment would likely depict a woman either having her hair dressed by another or arranging it herself, the composition organized around the curve of the neck, the implements (combs, oils, mirror), and the cascade of black hair that gives such scenes their visual weight. The sumi ink used for the hair offers a strong tonal anchor against which other colors can be modulated. The genre presents technical demands in the carving of fine hair lines with the to-knife and in the registration of multiple color blocks for the implements and surrounding garments. The subject continues a thread of intimate, unposed-feeling domestic observation that ran through both ukiyo-e and the shin-hanga revival of the early twentieth century.