Evening Cosmetics

A bijin-ga set at twilight or after dark, depicting a woman attending to her toilette — most likely seated before a small lacquer mirror stand (kyōdai) applying powder or rouge, a moment of private grooming common in Edo-era genre depictions of the floating world. Mori's treatment departs from the linear delicacy of classical bijin printmaking: contours are heavy and unbroken, the kimono's textile pattern is reduced to repeating geometric units printed as if cut from paper stencils, and the night setting is suggested by saturated dark grounds rather than tonal bokashi gradation. This planar graphic language reflects Mori's training in the katazome stencil-dyeing tradition under Keisuke Serizawa's circle, redirected into woodblock by way of the sosaku-hanga principle of single-artist authorship. Domestic and theatrical subjects involving female figures — sleeping, dressing, applying cosmetics — recur throughout Mori's catalogue, locating his work in a vernacular Edo register rather than the sentimental shin-hanga revival.