Akan National Park — 国立阿寒

This third variant of Hasui's Akan National Park composition depicts the volcanic lake district of eastern Hokkaido, designated as one of Japan's early national parks in 1934. Akan's landscape is defined by the caldera lakes—Mashu, Kussharo, and Akan—set amid conifer forests and the twin peaks of Mount Ōakan and Mount Meakan. As a third printing state or edition, this impression may differ from its companions in the intensity of the sky bokashi, the register of the lake's color, or the handling of steam rising from geothermal vents along the shoreline. Hasui traveled to Hokkaido specifically to document scenery that differed markedly from Honshū's more temperate landscapes, and the austere northern light and wide, undeveloped horizons of Akan required adjustments in his compositional approach. The relative emptiness of the scene—water, sky, and distant mountains with minimal human presence—typifies his Hokkaido work.