Hair

The third in Nagase's Hair group, this print continues his investigation of a single figural motif through the self-carved, self-printed mokuhanga technique central to sosaku-hanga practice. Across such variants, an artist working in this idiom might alter the angle of the head, the placement of hands, the weight of the keyline, or the bokashi gradation behind the figure to test how small changes shift the image's mood. Nagase's compositions of this kind generally privilege contour and silhouette over surface detail, an approach informed by his exposure to European modernism during his 1929–1936 residence in France and exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne. Printed on absorbent washi with hand pressure from the baren, the impression would carry visible tonal irregularities that distinguish creative prints from the more uniform commercial output of contemporary shin-hanga publishers such as Watanabe.