Wiping the hair

"Wiping the Hair" depicts an intimate moment of domestic grooming, likely showing a woman drying or arranging her hair after bathing. The subject revisits the bijin-ga tradition through Onchi's modernist sensibility, stripping away the elaborate kimono patterns and theatrical poses of Edo-period beauties to focus on quiet gesture and form. Working entirely as a sosaku-hanga artist, Onchi designed, carved, and printed the work himself, allowing him to vary inking and impression across copies. The composition relies on simplified contour, broad areas of flat color, and selective bokashi (graduated tonal shading) to model the figure. This treatment reflects Onchi's interest in lyrical portraiture, exemplified by his portraits of Hagiwara Sakutaro and other contemporary literary figures. By choosing a private, undramatic subject, he aligned himself with the European modernist preference for interior life over narrative anecdote, while keeping the medium distinctly Japanese in its washi paper and water-based pigments applied by hand with the baren.