Combing The Hair
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
Combing the Hair is among the [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) subjects that most directly engaged Kotondo's technical abilities as a draftsman and the collaborative skill of his carvers and printers. The kamisuki moment — a woman mid-toilette, arranging or drawing a comb through unbound hair — allowed Kotondo to exploit the woodblock medium's capacity for rendering fine parallel lines in hair, the soft gradations of skin through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi), and the patterned complexity of kimono fabric, all within a single image. The woman's exposed nape and the loose fall of her hair are compositional elements with acknowledged erotic charge in the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) bijin-ga tradition, presented here with the restraint and refinement that distinguish Kotondo's output from more commercial contemporaries. The print was produced in collaboration with a specialist publisher and carver-printer team following shin-hanga workshop practice.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Combing The Hair was created by Torii Kotondo (鳥居言人).
Combing The Hair depicts bijin-ga and portraits.
