Twilight at Kiba Lumber Yard

A second edition or compositional variant of Hasui's Kiba Lumber Yard at twilight. Multiple editions of this subject exist, reflecting both its commercial popularity and the revisionary process typical of shin-hanga publishing: blocks were re-cut or re-colored for later print runs, sometimes with alterations to the sky gradation, water tonality, or the silhouetted forms of the log stacks and warehouse structures on the far bank. In this version the emphasis remains on the sunset sky reflected in the canal, the fundamental compositional logic of the design, but the specific color range or the treatment of the floating logs may differ from companion versions. The Kiba lumber district offered Hasui an opportunity to document an industrial landscape specific to old Shitamachi. By the Showa period, when many of these prints were published or reissued, the traditional practice of floating timber through urban canals was already declining, giving the prints a retrospective quality not unlike Hiroshige's depictions of the same area in the nineteenth century.