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](/glossary/shunga), and entered the mainstream Japanese print only with the Western-facing reforms of the late Meiji and Taisho periods. In [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/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](/glossary/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.