Lake Toya, Hokkaido, from the series "Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition" (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen, Hokkaido Toyako)

Lake Toya, Hokkaido (Hokkaido Toyako), from Kawase Hasui's Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen) of 1933, depicts the volcanic crater lake in southwestern Hokkaido, with its small islands rising from the still water. Lake Toya had grown into a popular destination by the early Shōwa period thanks to railway connections and the development of nearby hot-spring resorts, and Hasui's print situates the lake within the broader expansion of shin-hanga subject matter to include modern Japanese travel destinations. The composition's quiet center, formed by the islands and the surrounding ring of forested hills, is rendered through careful color separation in publisher Watanabe Shozaburo's Tokyo workshop, where the carvers and printers produced the multiple registered blocks that combine the cool water tones with the slightly warmer foliage and atmosphere. Bokashi gradations across the lake surface and sky reinforce the impression of altitude and clarity characteristic of Hokkaido's interior. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves this impression, identifies the print as part of the 1933 northern campaign that produced many of the Eastern Japan Edition's prints. Lake Toya itself had been formed by ancient volcanic collapse, with continued volcanic activity in nearby Mount Usu, and Hasui's image acknowledges this geological setting through the encircling silhouette of hills. By including a Hokkaido subject in a major shin-hanga series, Hasui and Watanabe extended the geographic scope of the woodblock landscape tradition into a region of Japan that had received comparatively little attention from earlier ukiyo-e designers.