Nude

Nudes were a recurring subject for Sekino from the late 1940s onward, an unmistakably modern and Western-influenced theme that sat outside the historical repertoire of [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) and signaled the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) movement's break with Edo-period genre boundaries. A single-figure nude in mokuhanga of this period would typically be carved with a confident, simplified contour line on the key block, with flesh tones built up through two or three lightly inked color blocks rather than the dense layering used for kimono prints. Sekino often softened the body's modeling with subtle [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) along edges and in shadows, allowing the grain and tooth of the [washi](/glossary/washi) to register as part of the skin's surface. The framing tends to be close and quiet — studio observation rather than narrative — placing the work in dialogue with the figure studies of Onchi Koshiro and other sosaku-hanga peers, and with the broader twentieth-century Japanese interest in the seated or reclining female nude as a vehicle for formal experiment.