Irises

Iris (hanashobu) imagery has deep resonance in Japanese art, evoking the Tales of Ise and the Yatsuhashi episode at the Mikawa marshes. In the bijin-ga tradition, irises typically frame a woman in early summer dress, often a yukata or single-layer kimono appropriate to the rainy season. Shimura's Irises would likely place the figure beside the tall vertical sweep of iris stalks, using the deep purples and blue-violets of the petals as a counterpoint to the paler tones of skin and undergarment. Mokuhanga is well suited to the iris motif because the broad, flat petal shapes register cleanly from carved blocks and accept bokashi gradation along the petal edges. Shimura's treatment exploits the contrast between the rigid linearity of the leaves and the soft curvature of the woman's posture. Within his career, the seasonal-flower-with-figure compositions extend the bijin-ga genre into kacho-e territory, blending two strands of shin-hanga subject matter that had been developed separately by Ohara Koson and Hashiguchi Goyo.