Sea Of Ubara, Chiba

Ubara is a fishing village on the Pacific coast of the Bōsō Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, known for its rocky shoreline, pine-clad headlands, and the small bay that has long drawn artists and visitors from Tokyo. Maeda's print likely depicts the curve of the bay or the rock formations offshore, with the dark reefs printed against lighter passages of water and sky in the [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations characteristic of [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) marine work. Specifying the location in the title places the print within the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition of named-place views, though Maeda's treatment would have stripped away the figure-laden activity that earlier [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) meisho prints often included, leaving the geography itself as the subject. The print belongs to his coastal series alongside the more generic Seascape sheets, and the choice of a Chiba subject—rather than the Hokkaido coasts of his upbringing or the famous Sagami Bay views favored by [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) publishers—reflects the broad geographic reach of his landscape practice.