Nude

A figure study of a nude, this print reflects Nagase's training in Western oil painting and sculpture, disciplines he absorbed before turning seriously to woodblock. The female nude was largely absent from Edo-period print subjects, outside of shunga, and entered the mainstream Japanese print only with the Western-facing reforms of the late Meiji and Taisho periods. In sosaku-hanga, the nude became a vehicle for demonstrating that the medium could carry the anatomical seriousness expected of academic drawing, rendered through key-block contour and color-block modeling rather than tonal shading. A figure of this kind would typically be carved with attention to the long curves of back and thigh, with skin areas laid in flat or with subtle bokashi gradation around shadowed edges. The print connects to Nagase's years in France between 1929 and 1936, where he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and engaged directly with the European life-drawing tradition that sosaku-hanga sought to bring into the woodblock medium.