Last remaining flowers

The title suggests autumn or late-season blossoms, a subject with deep precedent in Japanese print culture — the kacho-e tradition of flower-and-bird imagery extending from Hokusai through Ohara Koson. Working within sosaku-hanga rather than the older shin-hanga or ukiyo-e modes, Hagiwara would treat such a subject with greater abstraction, the flowers compressed into formal essences rather than botanically rendered. His accumulation of many printed layers — sometimes twenty or more separately carved blocks — suits the suggestion of petals catching the last of the light, with bokashi gradients producing the translucent depth he became identified with. Within his wider oeuvre, seasonal and natural subjects sit alongside the geological abstractions of the Stone Garden series, both reflecting his sustained interest in how a printed surface can approximate the substance of the world rather than merely its appearance.