Burning Meadows at Asagiri

Burning Meadows at Asagiri, produced by Hagiwara Hideo in 1981, belongs to the artist's extended early-1980s engagement with the foothill plateau around Mount Fuji. Asagiri, a high meadow region on the southwestern flank of Fuji long associated with seasonal grass burns conducted to maintain the open landscape, gives the print its specific locale and central pictorial event. The composition is organized around a saturated horizontal register of warm color — deep reds, oranges, and smoldering ochres — laid into a darker surrounding ground, so that the central zone reads unmistakably as a band of burning grass moving across the meadow. Above and below, cooler, more reserved passages suggest the dimming sky and the already-scorched or as-yet-untouched terrain. Rather than diagram the controlled burn topographically, Hagiwara distills its visual essence — the line of fire, the brilliance against twilight earth — into the disciplined language of carved wood and layered ink. The print is a mature example of his sosaku-hanga (creative print) practice: he designed, carved, and printed the sheet himself, and the surface preserves direct evidence of his hand. The Minneapolis Institute of Art, which holds this impression in its collection of modern Japanese prints (https://collections.artsmia.org/art/129269), positions Burning Meadows at Asagiri within a substantial holding of Hagiwara's 1981 Fuji-region landscapes. For students of Hagiwara Hideo, the print demonstrates how thoroughly he could honor a specific local practice — the seasonal burning of meadows — through abstract woodblock, allowing the named place to anchor the composition while the carved surface carries the full sensory weight of fire moving through dry grass.