Twilight at Lake Kawaguchi

Lake Kawaguchi sits at the northern foot of Mount Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture, the geological landscape where Hagiwara was born and raised. A twilight scene at this location carries biographical resonance for the artist, who grew up among the mountains and water of the Fuji Five Lakes region. Hagiwara's mature method — layering as many as twenty separately printed impressions on washi — suits twilight atmospherics, where overlapping translucencies can approximate the slow shift from day to night. Bokashi gradations along the horizon, achieved by graduated inking on the block, soften the boundary between sky and water. Although Hagiwara is associated primarily with abstract series such as Stone Garden and his gemstone-inspired prints, his work returns periodically to the landscapes of his childhood, treated with the same technical patience and chromatic restraint that mark his nonrepresentational pieces.