Night View of Cherry Blossoms at Koganei

This third version of the Koganei night cherry-blossom scene represents another printing within the series produced from Hasui's original design, with the blocks reused across years or decades depending on publisher demand. The print's visual logic depends on a careful balance between the lightness of blossoming cherry branches and the darkness of the night surround — a contrast that required multiple printing passes to establish correctly. The waterway that runs through Koganei's cherry-blossom avenue provided Hasui with a reflective horizontal surface in the composition's lower register, allowing the lantern and blossom tones to appear twice. Koganei remained a popular subject in shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga print culture through the Showa period, its combination of natural beauty, historical association, and seasonal specificity making it emblematic of the kind of Japanese landscape Hasui spent his career documenting.