Small woodblock print, page 38 from Shin Nihon kenbutsu

This sheet sits among the small-format landscape illustrations bound into Shin Nihon kenbutsu (New Sightseeing of Japan), Ishikawa's contribution to the modern meisho-e book tradition. The page-38 view would have been keyed into a particular regional itinerary running through the volume. What distinguishes Ishikawa's small landscapes from those of his shin-hanga contemporaries is his yoga (Western oil painting) eye: receding perspective measured against a single horizon line, modeled volume in tree masses and rock, and a Western treatment of light source rather than the diagrammatic atmospheric conventions inherited from ukiyo-e. The carver and printer translated those painterly devices into woodblock through line work and layered color impressions on washi, with bokashi gradations carrying the sky and water passages. Within Ishikawa's output the Shin Nihon kenbutsu plates document a topographic, place-based mode of work distinct from the studio nudes for which he is more widely associated, broadening the picture of his print practice.