Ancient Fish

The title points toward a fossil subject rather than a living fish — a likely echo of the geological formations and mineral deposits Hagiwara had absorbed since childhood at the base of Mount Fuji and which informed his gemstone and Stone Garden series. The image probably presents a single elongated fish form embedded against a textured ground, with the scales, vertebrae, and outline carved as a relief pattern in one block and printed over multiple ground colors that suggest stone matrix. Hagiwara's mature technique relied on as many as twenty or more separately printed blocks; for a subject like this, layered earth pigments — siennas, ochres, dark umbers — would build up the rock-like surround, while a final carefully registered block carries the fossil's fine internal structure. The print fits within his broader interest in objects that record long durations of geological time within a single still image.