Willow tree at Sarusawa pond (Nara)

Sarusawa Pond sits at the foot of Kofuku-ji's five-story pagoda in Nara, a site established in poetry and [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) since the Heian period. The composition centers on a willow whose trailing branches descend toward still water — a motif that allows Nakazawa to deploy the soft tonal gradations he cultivated as a yoga painter under Kuroda Seiki. Atmospheric handling of the trunk and foliage substitutes [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) printing for brushwork, suggesting dappled light through the leaves. Unlike the linear meisho-e tradition of Hiroshige, Nakazawa treats the scene as a tonal study, with the pond's reflective surface flattened into a single broad field of color. The print belongs to a broader tendency among older [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) adjacent figures who translated Western-influenced landscape painting into the woodblock medium, retaining the print's planar quality while pursuing painterly observation. The understated palette — likely greens, ochres, and muted blues — reflects his preference for restrained tonality over the saturated polychromy of contemporary [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) publishers.