Steam

Steam likely depicts a young woman at the bath or beside a tea-kettle, the rising vapor providing both an atmospheric subject and a technical challenge for the carver and printer. To render steam in mokuhanga, the printer typically uses bokashi — graded ink applied with a damp brush along the edge of the block — so that the white of the washi reads as vapor against a softly toned ground, with no firm outline. Compositions of this type allow Shinsui to treat the bare neck, shoulder, and a loosened collar with the close observation that defines his best bijin-ga, while restraining the palette to cool greys, ochres, and pale flesh tones. Bath and toilette subjects had been a staple of ukiyo-e since the eighteenth century, but Shinsui, working with publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, gave them the introspective, individuated treatment that distinguishes the shin-hanga reformation of the genre from its Edo-period precedents. The print pairs technical refinement with quiet, domestic intimacy.