Description
New Year’s Games brings women and children to an open veranda beside a raised board, with green lower panels and an elaborately dressed woman in the foreground. Their gathering forms a scene of New Year’s games rather than a formal group portrait. Kitagawa Utamaro gives the festive activity a particular human setting, allowing architecture and varied positions to connect the participants across the illustrated page.
The 1801 woodblock illustration uses ink and color on paper. As a scene from a printed book, it belongs to a larger sequence while retaining the interest of its individual subject. The image makes an activity associated with the opening of the year available to continued looking, allowing a fleeting occasion to remain vivid beyond the moment in which its games were played.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Kitagawa Utamaro collection.
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