In the bathroom

The title points to a nude figure set within a domestic bathing scene, a subject Ishikawa developed in his 1934 portfolio Rajo Jusshu (Ten Types of Female Nudes). The bathroom interior gave him a justified setting for an unclothed body, allowing the combination of his yoga (Western oil painting) training in anatomical drawing with the technical resources of the woodblock medium: bokashi gradations across the flesh, multiple impressions to build tonal depth, and careful color separation for the surrounding tile, water, and textiles. Where shin-hanga bijin-ga of the same period retained the kimono and the formal codes of the courtesan and geisha tradition, Ishikawa's bathing nudes broke from that lineage almost entirely, drawing instead on European salon painting and the academic studio nude. The print would have required an experienced carver and printer to translate his painterly modeling into the registered, layered impressions of nishiki-e on washi, and it stands among the works that distinguish his figure output from the surrounding bijin-ga current.