Yugao

Shusui appears to have produced more than one composition under the title Yugao, a practice not uncommon among twentieth-century woodblock artists who returned to favored subjects in successive impressions or alternate states. Variant prints can differ in palette, registration emphasis, the disposition of supporting motifs, or the moment of the moonflower vine's bloom relative to the figural element. The Yugao chapter of The Tale of Genji is dense with possible visual cues — a humble dwelling glimpsed through fence palings, a fan inscribed with a poem, a night scene in which Hikaru Genji first encounters the heroine — and successive treatments often select different episodes. As with the companion impression, mokuhanga of the subject typically rely on hand-rubbed [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) for the gradient of the evening sky and reserved white in the blossom. Without published catalogues raisonnés for Shusui, the relationship between the two Yugao prints in his oeuvre — chronological, episodic, or simply a re-cut block — cannot be established from external evidence.