Girls of the twelve months: June

This print appears to be part of a series pairing young figures with seasonal associations across the calendar year. June (rokugatsu) in Japan corresponds to the early rainy season (tsuyu) and is traditionally evoked through motifs such as iris (ayame), hydrangea (ajisai), or scenes of children sheltering under paper umbrellas. The twelve months framework draws on a long tradition in [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) printmaking, beginning with Edo-period series by Harunobu and Eishi and continuing into the twentieth century. Compositions in this format typically feature a single full-length figure framed against minimal background, with seasonal attributes serving as identifying motifs. Print production in the early twentieth century would have used multiple cherrywood blocks, hand-pulled with a [baren](/glossary/baren) onto washi, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients in the sky or background to indicate atmosphere. As an entry in Shusui's documented but sparsely catalogued output, this print contributes to a corpus that gravitates toward established figural and natural subjects rather than the modernist experimentation of contemporaries in the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) or [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) movements.