After Bath

After Bath depicts a female figure in the quiet moment following the bath, a subject with a long history in Japanese printmaking from [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) onward. Onchi reframes the theme in the lyrical, modernist idiom of the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) movement: rather than the elaborately patterned kimono and detailed coiffure of an Edo-period beauty print, the body is summarized in spare contours and broad fields of color, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) softening the transitions of skin and cloth. The intimacy of the scene aligns with Onchi's interest in interior, contemplative states — the same sensibility that informs his portraits and lyric abstractions. Cut on cherry block and burnished by hand on [washi](/glossary/washi), the print follows Onchi's lifelong commitment to single-author production, in which design, carving, and printing all proceed from one hand. The result is closer to a private observation than a public picture of a beauty.