Stone and Sand (Ishi to suna)

Stone and Sand (Ishi to suna) — the two primary constituents of the dry rock garden (karesansui) that distills the Japanese aesthetic of the essential — provided Hagiwara with a subject perfectly aligned with his abstract practice. The traditional Zen garden reduced the landscape to rock and raked gravel, eliminating water, plants, and all natural specificity to leave only form and the marks of human arrangement on the fundamental geological materials. Hagiwara's carved woodblock surfaces, which worked through the marks left by the cutting tool on wood, found in the karesansui a profound formal mirror.