Woman After a Bath
(Yokugo no Onna)

mica ground, dated and signed, Taisho kyunen shichigatsu Yokugo no onna Goyo ga (Taisho 9 [1920], July, Woman after the bath, by Goyo), with red rectangular artist's seal, Goyo

17 5/8 by 11 3/4 in., 44.7 by 29.9 cm

Although Goyo ultimately rejected Watanabe Shozaburo's (1885-1962) attempt to revitalize ukiyo-e by introducing stylizations which focused on adding textures (showing the hand of the printer) that ran counter to traditional methods; Goyo did bring his own interpretation of modern concepts to his printmaking. While Goyo's bijin prints with mica backgrounds harken back to the golden era of ukiyo-e in subject and printing techniques, the delicate shading of skin on this nude reveals Goyo's training in yoga painting by introducing Western-style modeling.

Reference:
Kato, Junzo, comp., Kindai Nihon hanga taikei, 1975-76, Vol. I, pl. 92
Reigle Stephens, Amy, gen. ed., The new wave: Twentieth-century Japanese prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, 1993, p. 130, pl. 133
D'Hauterives, Arnaud, La nouvelle vague: L'estampe japonaise de 1868-1939 dans la Collection Robert O. Muller, Musée Marmottan, Institute de France, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 1994, p. 49, pl. 82
Kendall H. Brown & Hollis Goodall-Cristante, Shin-Hanga, New Prints in Modern Japan, 1996, p. 61, fig. 74, cat. 40
Reigle Newland, Amy, and Hamanaka Shinji, The Female Image: 20th century prints of Japanese beauties, 2000, p. 42, pl. 16
Reigle Newland, Amy, gen. ed., Printed to Perfection: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2004, p. 63, no. 40
Zehnder, Amanda T., Modern Japanese Prints: The Twentieth Century, Carnegie Museum of Art, 2009, p. 35
Koyama Shuko, Beautiful Shin Hanga- Revitalization of Ukiyo-e, Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum, 2009, p. 39, p. 1-48

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