After the Bath / Woman at the Bath (Yokujô no onna?), Taishô period, dated 1915

Dated 1915, this early bathing print predates Goyo's concentrated period of self-published woodblock production by several years. The work likely represents an initial exploration of the subject matter he would refine throughout the late Taishô period. The composition shows a woman at or just after the bath — Yokujô no onna translating roughly as 'woman at the bath' — with the figure occupying most of the pictorial field in the manner of classical [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga). At this stage Goyo had not yet fully established the meticulous production standards that defined his later work, where he personally supervised every stage of carving and printing. Nonetheless, the 1915 print demonstrates his early interest in the interplay of warm flesh tones against cooler backgrounds, a tension he would develop with increasing sophistication as the decade progressed.