Mt. Tarumaeyama

Tarumae-san, a 1,041-metre active stratovolcano on the southern shore of Lake Shikotsu in Hokkaidô, is identifiable by the lava dome that has occupied its summit crater since the 1909 eruption. The dome rises like a stone plug from the otherwise flattened crater rim, giving the mountain an unusual profile within the Japanese volcanic catalogue. As a Hokkaidô native, Maeda treated his island's volcanoes with first-hand specificity — Tarumae, along with the Akan and Daisetsu ranges, recurs across his work. The print likely depicts the dome and crater silhouette in flat color planes, with the surrounding caldera lake or birch forests rendered in restrained tones and visible woodgrain. Sōsaku-hanga conventions of self-cutting and self-printing show through in such works in deliberate registration choices, baren marks in the pigment, and the use of the cherry-wood block's grain as a design element rather than a flaw to be polished out.