Tsuta Hotspring, Mutsu Province

This second variant of the Tsuta Onsen subject reflects Hasui's practice of revisiting productive locations across different series and publication contexts, sometimes with compositional adjustments that shift the season, weather, or framing. The Tsuta hot spring inn in Aomori Prefecture, one of Japan's oldest continuously operating onsen, offered a subject defined by the integration of modest timber architecture into a dense northern forest—a compositional enclosure quite different from Hasui's more open coastal or mountain views. This version may emphasize a different season relative to companion prints of the subject: heavy winter snow on the inn roof, the bright greens of early summer, or the amber and deep red of autumn foliage within the beech canopy. The intimate scale of the hot spring inn required Hasui to work with a compressed compositional space, rendering the textures of weathered wood, stone, and moss with careful attention to the way filtered forest light falls across surfaces.