Lake Towada (Towada-ko)

This print depicts Lake Towada, a deep caldera lake straddling the border of Aomori and Akita prefectures in northern Honshu. Hasui visited the Towada-Hachimantai region on multiple sketching tours, drawn to the lake's stillness and the dense conifer forests that descend to its shore. A meisho-e composition in the shin-hanga tradition, the print likely presents the lake under conditions of atmospheric diffusion—early morning mist, twilight, or snowfall—that dissolve the far shore into gradated tone. Hasui's printer Shozaburo Watanabe achieved smooth tonal transitions across water surfaces through careful bokashi, layering diluted pigment to render depth and reflective calm. The oban-format sheet allows a broad horizontal emphasis that underscores the lake's scale. Mount Towada's volcanic geology shaped a nearly circular basin surrounded by beech and pine; Hasui characteristically uses the treeline as a framing device, compressing sky and anchoring the composition against the reflective water plane below.