Hanga
Woman taking a catnap by Hashiguchi Goyo — Japanese Woodblock print, description

Woman taking a catnap

by Hashiguchi Goyo

Shin-hanga
FiguresBijin-gaAnimals
Date:
description
Medium:
Woodblock print
Format:
Oban
Edition:
Published by Watanabe Shozaburo

Description

A woman taking a catnap — a rare moment of unconscious repose in Goyo's work, which more typically captures women in states of active self-attention. The sleeping or resting figure offered particular compositional opportunities: the relaxed body loses the performed quality of waking posture, and Goyo was alert to what unconsciousness revealed about his subjects. The composition requires the viewer to become briefly an intruder on unguarded privacy, a relationship to the female subject that Goyo handled with consistent delicacy.

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Female Bather Standing Before a Sink, Filling a Basin with Water, Taishô period, dated 1918 (7th month of Taishô 9) by Hashiguchi Goyo

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Featured in Collections

Curated cross-cuts that include this print.

Shin-Hanga: Japan's Twentieth-Century Print RevivalBijin-ga: Japanese Beauty Prints

Frequently Asked Questions

Woman taking a catnap was created by Hashiguchi Goyo (橋口五葉) in description.

Woman taking a catnap was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (description).

Woman taking a catnap depicts figures, bijin-ga, and animals.