Nude no. 1

This second impression of Nude no. 1 illustrates the small variations that arise across an edition when the same artist carves and prints each sheet by hand. Differences may appear in pigment saturation, in the precise alignment of the color blocks against the keyblock, in the visible woodgrain transferred from block to [washi](/glossary/washi), or in the tonal warmth of the paper itself. The subject is again a single figure rendered in the reduced, contour-led idiom that Kawano applied across his nude studies, with the form resolved into a few broad shapes held within firmly carved outlines. Comparing impressions under the same title is informative about [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) practice, where the artist's involvement in every stage of production meant that no two pulls were strictly identical and the edition functioned as a sequence of related objects rather than uniform copies. The print extends Kawano's sustained engagement with the unclothed figure that ran in parallel with his more celebrated dancing women.