Half-Nude Woman Kneeling

Half-Nude Woman Kneeling is a Taisho-era woodblock that brings together the sosaku-hanga emphasis on personal expression with the Western life-drawing tradition that was entering Japanese art education in the early twentieth century. The kneeling pose and partial nudity suggest a studio setting, the woman modelling for the artist rather than being observed in daily life. Tobari carves the figure with an attention to volume and shadow that reflects his engagement with Western approaches to the body, while the woodblock medium grounds the image in Japanese printmaking tradition. The result is a hybrid work, neither fully Western nor traditionally Japanese in its treatment of the nude.