Irises

A second composition or impression in Shimura's Irises subject, likely showing the same model in a related but distinct pose, or the same design pulled in a different color register. Within the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) and post-shin-hanga publishing model, designers often produced thematic pairs or small series rather than isolated single sheets — the iris motif lent itself to such groupings because the flower's arc through the early summer could be tracked across multiple images, from emerging buds to full bloom to the wet-after-rain state. The print deploys the same vocabulary of carefully keyed color blocks and selective [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi), with the printer modulating ink saturation to differentiate this impression from its companion. Shimura's iris images sit alongside his [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) of women with cherry blossoms, chrysanthemums, and snow as part of an extended seasonal cycle. The genre roots reach back through Kaburagi Kiyokata to the late Edo bijin-ga of Keisai Eisen and Kikukawa Eizan, but Shimura's economy of line marks the work as decisively twentieth-century.