Aoba Castle, Sendai (Sendai Aobajō), from the series Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fūkei shu higashi Nihon hen)
by Kawase Hasui
by Kawase Hasui
Aoba Castle, Sendai (Sendai Aobajō), from Kawase Hasui's Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fūkei shu higashi Nihon hen) of 1933, depicts the hilltop site of the former castle of the Date clan above the city of Sendai in northern Honshu. By the early Shōwa period Aoba Castle had largely been demolished, and Hasui's view emphasizes the surviving stone walls, surrounding terrain, and a panoramic prospect rather than any reconstructed keep. The print belongs to the Eastern Japan Edition, which Hasui designed for publisher Watanabe Shozaburo's Tokyo workshop after extended travels through Tohoku and Hokkaido. The carvers translated Hasui's sketches into multiple blocks for the modulated greens, browns, and grays of the hill, while the printers used graded bokashi tones in sky and distance to create the open feeling of an elevated site. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves this impression, contextualizes the print within shin-hanga's broader effort to record contemporary Japanese landscapes that combined historical association with modern presence. Sendai had been transformed during the Meiji and Taishō periods into a regional center of administration, education, and military activity, and the castle site continued to function as a symbolic landmark even after its physical structures were gone. Hasui's restrained treatment of Aoba Castle, focused on terrain rather than monument, exemplifies the movement's preference for atmospheric observation over architectural illustration. The print continues the workshop tradition of multi-block color printing inherited from the Edo period and refined within Watanabe's shin-hanga program.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Aoba Castle, Sendai (Sendai Aobajō), from the series Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fūkei shu higashi Nihon hen) was created by Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水) in 1933.
Yes — Aoba Castle, Sendai (Sendai Aobajō), from the series Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fūkei shu higashi Nihon hen) is part of the Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition series by Kawase Hasui.
Aoba Castle, Sendai (Sendai Aobajō), from the series Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fūkei shu higashi Nihon hen) uses Bokashi, on color woodblock print.
Aoba Castle, Sendai (Sendai Aobajō), from the series Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fūkei shu higashi Nihon hen) depicts castles, landscapes, and famous places (meisho-e).
