Kamioki, from the series "A Brocade of Eastern Manners (Fuzoku Azuma no nishiki)"

Kamioki, from the series A Brocade of Eastern Manners (Fuzoku Azuma no nishiki), is a 1778 woodblock print by Torii Kiyonaga, the Torii school master whose images defined Edo bijin-ga in the late 1770s and 1780s. The subject is one of the seven-five-three rites of passage observed in the urban families of Edo: kamioki, the ceremony marking the moment when a young child, traditionally a girl of three or thereabouts, was first allowed to grow out the hair previously kept close-cropped. Kiyonaga gathers a small, formal group around the child - mother, attendants, perhaps an older sister or aunt - and uses costume to mark the occasion. The little girl is dressed in special celebratory kimono, the women around her wear robes appropriate to a domestic rite, and the difference of scale between the adults and the child is carefully measured by his developing canon of bijin proportion. Throughout the series, Kiyonaga uses the household ceremonies of Edo to display contemporary fashion and social etiquette, and Kamioki belongs squarely to that project. As fourth head of the Torii school, he carries his training in firm contour drawing into the organization of the group, ensuring legibility despite the number of overlapping figures. The print is preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it sits within the museum's holding of Fuzoku Azuma no nishiki sheets. It documents how Edo bijin-ga absorbed the rites of childhood into the visual vocabulary of urban print culture.