Mount Asahi seen from Mount Shirouma, from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series" (Tabi miyage dai sanshu, Shiroumadake yori mita Asahidake)
by Kawase Hasui
- Date:
- 1924
by Kawase Hasui
Mount Asahi seen from Mount Shirouma (Shiroumadake yori mita Asahidake), from Kawase Hasui's Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series (Tabi miyage dai sanshū) of 1924, looks across a high alpine ridgeline in the Northern Japanese Alps. The print is unusual among Hasui's compositions for the breadth of its mountain panorama, drawn from a viewpoint near the summit of Mount Shirouma toward the snow-flecked mass of Mount Asahi. The image required careful translation in publisher Watanabe Shozaburo's Tokyo workshop, where the carvers had to render extensive expanses of pale sky and snow without losing structural definition, and the printers used delicate bokashi grading to suggest distance, altitude, and the cold thin air. Hasui's interest in high mountain landscapes participated in a broader Taishō- and Shōwa-era enthusiasm for alpine travel and mountaineering in Japan, an enthusiasm that shin-hanga publishers and artists actively cultivated through prints, guidebooks, and railway promotion. By incorporating such subjects into the Tabi miyage series, Watanabe positioned shin-hanga as a visual companion to contemporary Japanese travel rather than merely a continuation of the classical ukiyo-e canon of famous places. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds this impression, preserves the print as an example of how Hasui extended his landscape vocabulary to include the upland and mountainous interior of Honshu, complementing the coastal and lowland views that dominated earlier installments of the series. The composition's stillness, austerity, and restrained palette align with the meditative mood that contemporary collectors and later scholars have repeatedly identified as central to Hasui's contribution to the shin-hanga movement.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Mount Asahi seen from Mount Shirouma, from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series" (Tabi miyage dai sanshu, Shiroumadake yori mita Asahidake) was created by Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水) in 1924.
Yes — Mount Asahi seen from Mount Shirouma, from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series" (Tabi miyage dai sanshu, Shiroumadake yori mita Asahidake) is part of the Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series series by Kawase Hasui.
Mount Asahi seen from Mount Shirouma, from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series" (Tabi miyage dai sanshu, Shiroumadake yori mita Asahidake) depicts landscapes and travel scenes.
