Morning At Takamatsu

This print renders the port city of Takamatsu on Shikoku's Seto Inland Sea coast in the quiet of early morning. Takamatsu is associated with its historic water castle, Ritsurin Garden, and the broad, calm waters of the inland sea, all of which offered pictorial material well suited to Hasui's atmospheric landscape approach. In morning light, the sea surface likely occupies a substantial portion of the composition, its pale reflective quality built through gradated blue washes that required careful bokashi blending from the printer during production. The coast or harbor infrastructure — mooring posts, fishing vessels, or low stone seawalls — would anchor the foreground and provide scale. Hasui visited Takamatsu during his extensive travels documenting Japanese scenery and produced at least one design of the location that survives in multiple recorded states. The existence of a second impression variant underscores the print's commercial appeal; publisher Watanabe's atelier sometimes issued revised states to refresh circulation. The shin-hanga format gave the design its characteristic tonal refinement.