Present-day forms

A second print from the Ima Sugata (Present-day forms) series, Shoun's extended sequence of [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) documenting Meiji and early Taisho women. Each design within the series isolates a single figure — wife, daughter, geisha or shop attendant — and renders her in the textile patterns and hairstyles current at the moment of publication, giving the series a documentary function alongside its art-historical one. The technical demands were considerable: kimono patterns required separate blocks for each color, registration had to be exact across overlapping garments, and [karazuri](/glossary/karazuri) (blind printing) was often deployed on collars and obi to add tactile relief. Shoun's faces are characteristically restrained, with thin black outline supplied by the keyblock and minimal modeling of features. The series represents the Meiji-era publishing trade's response to a market still hungry for bijin-ga but no longer willing to accept the timeless idealizations of Edo-period [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).