Hamacho Park

Hamacho Park (Hamacho Koen) opened in 1929 in Nihonbashi on the former site of the Hosokawa daimyo estate, making it one of the modern Tokyo amenities Koizumi documented as the city rebuilt after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. This print belongs within the documentary project of One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo (Dai Tokyo Hyakkei), his masterwork series issued between 1928 and 1940, in which he treated reconstructed bridges, parks, and civic landmarks with the topographic seriousness Hiroshige had once given to the old meisho. Compositions in the series typically combine flat color planes with carefully observed architectural detail, a synthesis enabled by his self-reliant working method: he designed, carved, and printed every block, fulfilling the sosaku-hanga ideal of the artist as sole creator while retaining shin-hanga's interest in identifiable place. Bokashi gradations across sky or water are characteristic of his Hyakkei sheets and would register the seasonal mood of the park.