Lake Ashinoko

This 1970 woodblock print depicts Lake Ashinoko, the volcanic caldera lake in the Hakone region of Kanagawa Prefecture, produced in an edition of 100 (this being impression 20). Lake Ashinoko, with its clear waters, surrounding mountains, and famous views of Mount Fuji, is one of Japan's most celebrated natural landmarks. Funasaka's treatment of this identifiable subject through his abstract geometric vocabulary raises the question of what landscape depiction means when stripped of representational convention. The lake, mountains, and sky may be reduced to horizontal bands, angular planes, or color fields that reference the geography without illustrating it. The 1970 date places this in an early phase of Funasaka's career when his engagement with landscape subjects was more direct than it would become in the purely numbered works of later decades.