Summer grass

The title places this print within Hagiwara's seasonal subjects, treating the dense vegetation of a Japanese summer through his abstract vocabulary. The phrase carries resonance from classical poetry — Bashō's haiku on the grass that remains where warriors once dreamed — and Hagiwara would have been alert to such literary association without illustrating it. Compositions of this kind typically rely on mid-greens and yellow-ochres in close tonal proximity, achieved through partial overprinting that allows underlying impressions to modify the upper layers. The grain of the cherry block Hagiwara used could be exploited to register striations suggestive of stalks or blades — the wood's own pattern doing pictorial work, a quality some carvers call mokume. The print continues Hagiwara's practice of using natural subjects as occasions for color study rather than as occasions for pictorial description.