A Japanese Beauty

Produced in 1920 in the oban format, this print depicts a Japanese woman in the bijin-ga tradition, filtered through Fritz Capelari's European sensibility. Where Japanese artists of the same period tended toward idealized, porcelain-smooth features, Capelari brought a portrait painter's attention to individual character: the specific shape of a jawline, the particular way a mouth rests in repose. The woman is presented as a beauty, but her beauty is observed rather than conventionalized. Working with publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, Capelari had access to Japan's finest woodblock carvers and printers, whose skill translated his drawings into prints of exceptional refinement. The collaboration produced a unique fusion: Western composition and observational habits rendered through the Japanese woodblock technique of layered color printing on handmade washi paper, with its characteristic softness and absorbency.