Lake Kugushi, Wakasa

Subject from the Mikata Five Lakes (Mikata Goko) in former Wakasa Province, now southern Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast. Lake Kugushi is the largest of the five and connects through narrow channels to the sea, its waters varying in salinity and producing distinct seasonal colour. Hasui's lake subjects — including Lake Towada, Lake Tazawa, and Lake Chuzenji — typically employ a low horizon, a large reflective water surface rendered in graduated indigo and grey, and a wooded shoreline placed asymmetrically across the composition. Printing the still water requires careful registration of overlapping blocks pulled with the baren in long parallel strokes to achieve uniform tone, with bokashi gradients drawn across the upper sky and again beneath the far shore to suggest reflection. The subject fits within Hasui's documentary impulse to record regional landscapes that fell outside the famous Tokaido and Kisokaido subjects of nineteenth-century ukiyo-e, expanding the meisho-e repertoire into the Hokuriku and Sanin coasts. The Rivers and Lakes tag situates the print within his wider body of inland water subjects.