Eloquent faces of beauty: Yuge - Steam

This print belongs to a bijin-ga series structured around evocative atmospheric or emotional states, with Yuge (湯気) referring to rising steam or vapor — a motif long associated in Japanese visual culture with bathhouses, hot springs, and intimate domestic scenes. The print likely depicts a woman either at her toilette or amid bathing, her features partly veiled by drifting vapor. Such subjects allowed printmakers to demonstrate technical control over subtle gradations: bokashi printing on cheek and neck, pale ink washes for steam tendrils, and karazuri (blind embossing) for delicate textile patterns. The bijin-ga genre, codified by Utamaro and Eishi in the late eighteenth century, was substantially reinvented in the early twentieth century by shin-hanga artists including Hashiguchi Goyo and Ito Shinsui. Within this lineage, a less-documented printmaker like Shusui occupies a peripheral position, working in idioms established by better-known contemporaries. The Eloquent faces of beauty framing — with each print tied to a specific evocative state — follows the precedent of Utamaro's physiognomic series of beauties from the 1790s.