Setakamui Rock, Shiribeshi, from the series "Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition" (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen, Shiribeshi Setakamuiiwa)

Setakamui Rock, Shiribeshi (Shiribeshi Setakamuiiwa), from Kawase Hasui's Collection of Scenic Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen) of 1933, depicts the dramatic Setakamui rock formation along the western coast of Hokkaido in the former Shiribeshi region. The rock has long been associated with Ainu legends linking the place to a story of separation and transformation, and Hasui's print acknowledges this distinctive geology without illustrating the narrative directly. The composition focuses on the steep, layered cliff face rising from the sea, with the water and sky organized into broad bands of graded color. The print was produced in publisher Watanabe Shozaburo's Tokyo workshop, where the carvers managed the complex texture of the rock surface and the printers used bokashi gradations to model the transitions between water, cliff, and sky. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves this impression, includes the print among examples of Hasui's 1933 work that extended the shin-hanga landscape canon into Hokkaido, a region that had only recently become integrated into national Japanese cultural geography. Hokkaido's coastal cliffs, lakes, and ports gave Hasui a vocabulary of subjects that differed substantially from the temple and harbor views of Honshu, and Setakamui Rock exemplifies the kind of monumental natural form that the Eastern Japan Edition introduced into shin-hanga production. The print continues to be valued for the way it combines geological specificity with the calm, atmospheric idiom characteristic of Hasui's mature collaboration with Watanabe.