Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series: Matsue in Izumo: Hazy Moon (Tabi miyage dai sanshu: Izumo Matsue: Oborozuki)

Oborozuki, the hazy or misty moon, is a classic Japanese seasonal image strongly associated with spring, when atmospheric moisture diffuses moonlight into a soft luminous blur. This Matsue print from the Tabi miyage dai sanshu (Third Series, c. 1922) depicts the castle town of Izumo Province under exactly this condition—a moon visible but veiled, its light scattered across low cloud or mist rather than falling as hard silver illumination. Technically, rendering oborozuki required careful blending of pale yellow or white pigment into the surrounding sky gradation so that the moon appears to glow from within the cloud layer rather than sitting against a clear sky. Hasui's repeated treatment of Matsue under different meteorological conditions—cloudy day, crescent moon, and hazy moon—reflects the Tabi miyage series' documentary ambition to capture not just a place but the range of its atmospheric states as encountered by a traveling observer.