Summer Twilight at Ikano, Taishô period, dated 1919

Dated 1919 and thus among Hasui's early Taisho period production, this print depicts a summer twilight at Ikano, a location that may correspond to Ikaho in Gunma or a nearby area. The 1919 date places it within the formative period of Hasui's collaboration with publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, during which the shin-hanga movement was establishing its aesthetic and commercial identity. Early Hasui twilight compositions tend toward deep orange and violet skies rendered through layered bokashi gradations, the humid summer atmosphere diffusing light into soft transitional tones between day and night. The technical ambition of twilight subjects — requiring the printer to achieve convincing dusk colorations across large sky areas — was a hallmark of shin-hanga's effort to distinguish itself from both earlier ukiyo-e and Western printmaking. Figures in summer yukata at a hot-spring resort, or lantern light beginning to appear in inn windows, would reinforce the seasonal and temporal specificity.