Summer Beauty
- Date:
- 1920
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
- Edition:
Goyo completed only 14 woodblock print designs before his death in 1921, making every genuine impression extraordinarily rare. His bijin-ga are among the most refined of the entire shin-hanga movement. "Woman at the Bath" achieved $40,075 at Bonhams New York in 2020; Sotheby's estimates of $15,000–$25,000 are typical for top examples.
A bijin in summer dress — one of Goyo's summer beauty subjects rendered with the languid, heat-softened quality that distinguished his summer compositions from the more formally dressed women in other seasonal contexts. The summer beauty (natsu bijin) was a conventional category in bijin-ga, but Goyo transforms the convention through his insistence on specific, observed femininity: his summer women are not merely seasonal emblems but women who genuinely feel the heat, whose postures carry the slight loosening that warmth produces in the body.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Summer Beauty was created by Hashiguchi Goyo (橋口五葉) in 1920.
Summer Beauty was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1920).
Summer Beauty depicts bijin-ga and summer.
