Moon Over Lakeside

This print depicts an unspecified lakeside under moonlight, a compositional format Hasui employed repeatedly during his extensive travels throughout Japan under the Watanabe publishing house's patronage for the 'Scenes of Japan' series and subsequent collections. The open lakeside format — water extending to a far shore, mountains or hills at the horizon, moon positioned in the upper sky or near the horizon — allowed Hasui to concentrate his technical skill on large passages of bokashi sky and reflected light on water. Without a named location, the composition relies on universal scenic elements: perhaps a single fishing boat, a reed-edged near shore, and the particular quality of still water under a full or gibbous moon. The Hasui moonlit lake was a format that drew on the broader meisho-e tradition while achieving atmospheric effects beyond what Hiroshige's generation could accomplish with the woodblock medium.