Magical Palm Reading and Mole Reading

Fortune-telling and bodily reading converge in this woodblock print, where Hiratsuka explores the ancient practices of divining character and fate from the lines of the palm and the placement of moles on the skin. The title's pairing of "magical" with these diagnostic arts frames them as belonging to a realm between science and enchantment. Figures and hands occupy the composition, with exaggerated palm lines and marked skin surfaces that transform the body into a text to be read. Hiratsuka's carved lines echo the subject's own concern with linear patterns, creating a visual parallel between the printmaker's gouges in wood and the fortune-teller's interpretation of creases in flesh.