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

Matsue, the castle town of historic Izumo Province (present-day Shimane Prefecture), sits at the junction of Lake Shinji and the Ohashi River—a setting that gave Hasui rich material for atmospheric landscape work. This print from the Tabi miyage dai sanshu (Third Series, c. 1922) likely depicts the river corridor, castle hill, or lacustrine shoreline that defined Matsue's visual identity. Hasui visited and depicted Matsue in multiple variants, drawn to its misty, water-dominated geography. The flat light of the San'in coast, often overcast and diffuse, suited his characteristic technique of layered washi printing with soft bokashi transitions. The Ohashi River's broad reflective surface and the silhouette of Matsue Castle against the sky are recurring compositional elements across his Matsue designs, rendered with the careful attention to local specificity that defined the Tabi miyage series as travel documents as much as aesthetic objects.