Asakusa Townscape

Asakusa Townscape (浅草風景) is a small 18.4 × 23 cm watercolor and pencil on paper painted by Hasegawa Toshiyuki in 1936, during the Asakusa phase of his late work. The composition is a rapid impression of a street scene in the Asakusa entertainment district north of Ueno — possibly along the Rokku (Sixth District) of cinemas, music halls, and bars that had been the heart of Tokyo low culture since the Meiji period and that had reached the height of its glamour and density in the mid-1930s. The figures, signs, and architectural masses are summarized in transparent washes of magenta, viridian, and ochre over pencil notation, with the white of the paper carrying the highlights. The painting belongs to a sustained group of small Asakusa watercolors of the mid-1930s — including the second Asakusa Townscape, Townscape (Asakusa), and the undated Asakusa Section Six — that Hasegawa was producing on small sheets of paper in the back rooms of bars and cafés, often as quick exchanges for meals or drink. The watercolors are among the most concentrated works of his late career and have become the canonical visual record of pre-war Asakusa. The sheet is now in a private collection in Japan.