Inland sea

A seascape rather than a figure study, Inland sea departs from the nude series for which Ishikawa is principally known and engages with the meisho-e tradition of named-place imagery. The Seto Inland Sea (Seto Naikai), with its scattered islands and quiet inlets between Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, was a recurrent subject for early-twentieth-century printmakers including Hiroshi Yoshida, who produced a Seto Naikai series in 1930. Ishikawa's treatment likely combines the atmospheric perspective and tonal layering of his yoga training with mokuhanga seascape conventions: a low horizon, layered bokashi for water and sky, and silhouetted islands receding in scale across the picture plane. As a Kochi-born artist from Shikoku, Ishikawa had personal familiarity with the Inland Sea, and the subject sits within the broader shin-hanga interest in modernized landscape printing developed by Yoshida, Hasui, and Shotei.