Poem of Twilight 11

The eleventh installment in Aizawa's ongoing Twilight series, this 35 × 61 cm woodcut indicates a sustained meditation on dusk landscapes returning to the same subject across multiple states. The horizontal yoko-e format accommodates the wide compositional sweep characteristic of meisho-e landscape tradition, here reinterpreted in a contemporary register. Twilight subjects in Japanese print run from Hiroshige's evening views through the atmospheric shin-hanga landscapes of Hasui and Yoshida; Aizawa's series sits within this lineage while reflecting the post-war sosaku-hanga ethos of artist-designed, artist-cut, artist-printed work. The dusk subject typically calls for bokashi gradation to model the transition from lit sky to darkening earth, with woodgrain on washi often left visible as a textural component rather than concealed under flat color. As a self-taught practitioner based in Tochigi Prefecture, Aizawa represents a regional, non-academy strand of contemporary Japanese woodblock work. Selection of this print for the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 places it in a national exhibition context dominated by graduates of the Tokyo and Kyoto art universities.