A model

The title indicates a figure study, almost certainly an artist's model posed in a studio rather than a traditional [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) subject. Such prints sat at the intersection of Oda's two formative trainings: his Western-style oil painting under Kawamura Kiyoo, and the lithographic discipline he absorbed at his brother's Osaka shop. A studio nude or seated model carries the language of life-drawing — anatomical proportion, directional light, contour articulated against negative space — concerns largely foreign to Edo-period print conventions but central to the early [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) generation's project of redefining the woodblock as a fine-art medium. The handling of skin tones via overlaid impressions on [washi](/glossary/washi), with subtle [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) modeling rather than the flat outlined figures of [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e), would have been a deliberate stylistic stance. The print situates Oda alongside contemporaries such as Onchi Koshiro who similarly imported atelier subjects into the medium following the founding of the Nihon Sosaku Hanga Kyokai in 1918.