Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake, cradled in the Valley of the Ten Peaks in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, provided Yoshida with one of his most spectacular compositions during his 1925 North American travels. The lake's extraordinary turquoise-blue color — produced by glacial rock flour suspended in the meltwater — and the dramatic backdrop of the Wenkchemna Peaks towering above the far shore created a landscape of a scale and palette unlike anything in Japan. Yoshida's oil-painting experience in the American and Canadian West had prepared him for this kind of monumental grandeur, and his woodblock translation of the lake scene preserves both its geological drama and the crystalline quality of the high-altitude light. The print is one of his most celebrated North American works.