Kasamatsu Shiro 紫浪: Morning at the Hot Spring in Nozawa, Shinshu 温泉の朝 信州野澤 (First Edition) (SOLD)

Artist: Kasamatsu Shiro 紫浪 (1898-1991) Title: Onsen no asa, Shinshu Nozawa 温泉の朝 信州野澤 (Morning at the Hot Spring in Nozawa, Shinano Province)  Date: 1933 昭和8年 Intimate view of two women relaxing in an open-air onsen, the world far away. One woman with an elaborate hairstyle is immersed in the bath, her naked form visible beneath the clear water. She may be a geisha who is now relaxing at dawn after a long night of entertaining clients. Her companion crouches to test the water with her hand, her towel draped modestly over her knee. As the wooden spout fills the pool, concentric circles indicate the movement of the ripples. The color of the water itself is also masterful, as we get a sense of the rich minerals which give the bath a soft tint. Steam rises delicately in the air, and the haze of the steam is depicted with great skill by Watanabe Shôzaburo’s team of craftsmen, as it softens and blurs the edges of the design elements that are behind it. To the side we see wooden buckets and wo