Dusk at Nakaso (Nakaso no yu)
by Kawase Hasui
- Date:
- 1954
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
- Edition:
- Published by Watanabe Shozaburo
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
by Kawase Hasui
Night views with moonlight and lantern effects carry a 20–30% premium over comparable daytime scenes. The dramatic tonal contrasts required for nocturnal subjects make impression quality especially important — fine examples from pre-war printings show a depth of color that later editions rarely match. Prints with well-preserved black areas and accurate moonlight bokashi command the highest prices. Postwar lifetime editions (1946–1957) bearing the small 6mm J-seal represent authentic lifetime impressions but from the artist's final decade.
Dusk at Nakaso, published in 1954, depicts the coastal community of Nakaso on the Pacific coast of Ibaraki Prefecture at the transitional hour of dusk — the yu light fading over the shoreline and the fishing harbor's silhouettes darkening against the evening sky. The Nakaso shore, on the southern Ibaraki coast where the Pacific meets the low sandy shoreline of the Kanto plain, offered Hasui a broad horizon for his dusk sky gradations, the flat coastal topography allowing the sky to dominate the composition. The 1954 date places this among his final explorations of the Ibaraki coastal landscape.
Woodblock print
Teradomari no yau
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Dusk at Nakaso (Nakaso no yu) was created by Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水) in 1954.
Dusk at Nakaso (Nakaso no yu) was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1954).
Dusk at Nakaso (Nakaso no yu) depicts night scenes.
