In Hakone

Hakone, in the mountains southwest of Tokyo, has been a destination for travelers and artists since the Edo period, celebrated for its caldera lake (Ashi-no-ko), hot springs, and views of Mount Fuji. Ohtsu's print likely depicts a Hakone landscape — forested hillsides, a mountain lane, traditional inn architecture, or a lakeside view — rendered in the warm, unsensational palette typical of his practice. While earlier meisho-e (famous-place pictures) of Hakone, including those by Hiroshige and the shin-hanga generation, often emphasized monumental views, Ohtsu's treatment favors more intimate registers: a stand of trees, a roadside, the geometry of a single building set against the slope. Mokuhanga technique permits the layered greens and earth tones characteristic of his mountain work, with bokashi gradations softening transitions between foliage masses and atmospheric distance. The print situates Hakone within Ohtsu's broader documentary impulse: a record of Japanese countryside places experienced not as tourist icons but as the textured, seasonal landscapes inhabited by their residents.