It is good to do the first archery (Yumi hajime yoshi), from the series "A Series for the Hanazono Group (Hanazono bantsuzuki)"

From the same Hanazono group series as "It is good to cut one's fingernails," this Totoya Hokkei surimono — "It is good to do the first archery" (Yumi hajime yoshi) — turns to another New Year custom: the ceremonial first archery of the year, a martial and auspicious act associated with samurai households but observed in various forms more broadly in Edo society. The phrase "yoshi" ("it is good to ...") that runs through the Hanazono bantsuzuki series gives each print the air of a humorous almanac entry, with kyōka poems amplifying the idea in verse. Hokkei was trained in the Hokusai school and had spent more than a decade refining the still-life and emblematic surimono format that this kind of project demanded. The conceit allows for very compact compositions — a bow, an arrow, the gesture of preparation — that nevertheless carry a great deal of seasonal weight. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the sheet alongside other Hanazono bantsuzuki prints, and the series as a whole stands as one of the clearest examples of how Edo kyoka-e circles commissioned coherent runs of surimono that built up a calendar of small ritual moments through the year. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.