Moon at Matsushima

This print depicts Matsushima Bay, the famous island-dotted bay in Miyagi Prefecture celebrated since the Heian period in poetry and travel literature. Hasui's composition likely frames several of the bay's roughly 260 pine-clad rocky islands receding into a moonlit distance. The treatment of water is characteristic of his technique: layered blue and grey inks blended with bokashi to suggest the subtle sheen of reflected moonlight on calm coastal water. The moon itself may appear as an unprinted circle of washi paper or as a pale printed disc above the horizon. Tall Scots or Japanese black pines, often silhouetted in dark ink, form a vertical counterpoint to the horizontal expanse of water. Hasui visited Matsushima and sketched from life, a practice central to the shin-hanga movement's emphasis on direct observation.