Senjo Plain, Nikko (Nikko Senjogahara)

Senjōgahara is a volcanic highland wetland in Nikkō National Park (Tochigi Prefecture), lying at approximately 1,400 meters elevation on the plateau between Lake Yumoto and Lake Chūzenji. Hasui visited the Nikkō region multiple times, and his treatments of Senjōgahara capture the spare, open character of the high-altitude landscape. The compositional challenge of this subject lies in its horizontality: unlike many of Hasui's subjects that anchor the composition vertically with a pagoda, cliff, or tree, the marsh plain requires sky and land to share the picture plane in roughly equal proportions. The foreground would feature the seasonal grasses and low marsh vegetation characteristic of the plateau, rendered in ochres and warm tans if the scene is autumnal — Senjōgahara is particularly noted for its autumn color — or in muted greens under summer light. Distant peaks, possibly Shirane-san, close the background. The sky above the marsh, rendered through careful prussian blue to pale gradation, suggests either the clear high-altitude light or the gathering cloud typical of this elevated terrain.