Untitled (hirezaki-eiho)

An untitled bijin-ga by Hirezaki Eiho (1881–1968) from his extensive printmaking career. Eiho lived to eighty-seven and worked across a remarkably long span of Japanese history — from the Meiji modernization through World War II to the postwar economic miracle — and his work reflects this historical range even within the seemingly timeless genre of bijin-ga. The specific emotional register of each period's aesthetic expectations shaped his work in subtle ways, making his oeuvre a kind of extended record of changing Japanese sensibilities around feminine beauty and its representation.