Abstract

Abstract works form the core of Hagiwara's mature output, and this print represents his signature technical approach: the layering of as many as twenty or more separately carved blocks to construct a luminous, mineral-like surface. The sosaku-hanga ethos required the artist to perform every stage of production himself — carving, registering, and printing each block by hand with the baren — and Hagiwara's abstractions exploited this control to produce densely worked compositions reminiscent of polished stone or geological strata. Without representational subject matter, the print becomes a study in surface, edge, and translucent color overlay, drawing on the same sensibility as the Stone Garden series for which the artist became internationally known. The work belongs to the postwar Japanese avant-garde's reconciliation of abstraction with traditional materials — washi paper, water-based pigments, hand-carved cherrywood blocks — and demonstrates how Hagiwara extended mokuhanga's expressive register beyond figuration into pure tonal and textural composition.