Clock and beauty (II)

The (II) designation indicates a second state or second design in a paired set on the same theme. The composition juxtaposes a female sitter with a clock—almost certainly a Western-style mantel or wall clock rather than a traditional wadokei—making the print a compact emblem of the Taisho-Showa interior in which classical kimono dress coexisted with imported objects. Shinsui returned periodically to such modern-life accents within his [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga), allowing him to register social change without abandoning the traditional figure type. Printers would have used careful registration to align the clock's mechanical detail with the softer organic forms of the woman's hair and collar, contrasting flat geometric blocks against [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi)-gradated kimono fabric. The print typifies the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) negotiation between traditional subject matter and the visual vocabulary of contemporary urban Japan, where the bijin-ga genre absorbed contemporary props rather than retreating into historical costume.