Cloudy Day in Mito: Woodblock Version, Shôwa period, dated 1946

A second impression of Hasui's 1946 Mito composition, this print documents the collaborative production process at the Watanabe Shozaburo atelier, where multiple impressions of a single design were produced by specialist horishi (carvers) and surishi (printers) working from the same keyblock set. Variations in ink saturation, paper tone, and pigment mixing across impressions reveal the cumulative judgment of the printing team. Mito's subdued landscape under cloud cover offered Hasui a subject demanding tonal restraint: gray skies, dark architectural or arboreal forms, and the muted greens or bare branches of Kairakuen's plum orchards. The bokashi gradations in the sky and any water areas required precise registration across multiple printing passes. As a meisho-e of a historically significant provincial city, the print extends the celebrated-place tradition of earlier ukiyo-e printmakers into the shin-hanga era.