Fourth National Athletic Meeting

The Fourth National Athletic Meeting (Kokutai) was held in 1949 as part of postwar Japan's revival of national sporting competitions. A commemorative woodblock print for such an event represents an unusual departure from Hasui's characteristic landscape subjects, suggesting a commissioned work likely produced for the organizing committee or as an official commemorative edition. The composition may feature athletic figures, a stadium or competition venue, or a symbolic landscape relevant to the host location. The shin-hanga medium, though associated primarily with landscape and bijin-ga subjects, was occasionally employed for commemorative and event-related imagery. The print provides documentary evidence of the intersection between traditional printmaking and postwar Japanese cultural reconstruction. Its specificity to a dated event anchors it firmly within the 1949 period of Hasui's later career.