Takamatsu Castle, Sanuki (Sanuki no Takamatsujō), from the series Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishū)
by Kawase Hasui
- Date:
- 1921, February
by Kawase Hasui
Takamatsu Castle, Sanuki (Sanuki no Takamatsujō), from Kawase Hasui's Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishū) of 1921, looks across calm water toward the surviving keep and stone walls of the seaside fortress on Shikoku. Takamatsu Castle was unusual among Japanese castles for being built directly along the Inland Sea, and Hasui exploits this characteristic by aligning the water surface, the walls, and the distant hills into broad, parallel bands of color. The print depends on disciplined bokashi printing in the sky and the water, where graduated tones of blue and gray were applied by the printer using moistened blocks and brushes, a technique central to the shin-hanga workshop tradition. Hasui designed the image as part of the second installment in his Tabi miyage program with publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, who had organized the first series as a successful experiment and continued to back Hasui's regional travels. The Sanuki print reflects Watanabe's editorial sense: that a national landscape series should include not only the celebrated coastal and mountain views but also provincial castles, regional shrines, and harbor towns. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves an impression of this print, identifies it among the works that helped extend the shin-hanga visual canon beyond Tokyo and Kyoto and into Shikoku and other less-represented regions. Hasui's quiet treatment of the castle — viewed at distance, framed by water, without figures — emphasizes the building's place in a settled landscape rather than its martial history, in keeping with the contemplative mood that became a hallmark of his contributions to shin-hanga.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Takamatsu Castle, Sanuki (Sanuki no Takamatsujō), from the series Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishū) was created by Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水) in 1921, February.
Yes — Takamatsu Castle, Sanuki (Sanuki no Takamatsujō), from the series Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishū) is part of the Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series series by Kawase Hasui.
Takamatsu Castle, Sanuki (Sanuki no Takamatsujō), from the series Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishū) depicts castles and landscapes.
