Seated nude

Seated nude reflects Hiratsuka's grounding in yōga, the Western-style painting tradition he studied before committing to woodblock printing. The nude as a sustained subject was largely absent from Edo-period [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) and [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) but became a recurring concern for sōsaku-hanga artists who had absorbed European life-drawing conventions. The figure is carved as a configuration of broad planes—hip, thigh, shoulder, and torso resolved into flat black or white areas separated by the sharp contour lines characteristic of Hiratsuka's mature style. Rather than the descriptive shading of an oil study, the print works through reduction: anatomy compressed into the shapes the cherry block can hold. The composition frames the figure tightly, with negative space functioning compositionally rather than as background. Such studies sit within a strand of Hiratsuka's output that runs alongside his better-known temple, pagoda, and landscape prints, demonstrating the breadth of subjects the sōsaku-hanga movement claimed for the medium.