Suez Sunset

This print likely depicts the Suez Canal at dusk, a scene Nagase would have witnessed during his maritime journey between Japan and France between 1929 and 1936. The subject reflects the cosmopolitan range of [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga), which broke from the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition of fixed Japanese views to embrace the printmaker's personal experience of the world. Sunset compositions of this kind typically rely on [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation — pigment brushed across the block with a damp wide brush — to render the transition from dense vermillion through amber to deepening blue along the horizon. The flat planes of water and sky available in mokuhanga lend themselves to atmospheric subjects, where silhouetted vessels or canal banks read as dark cutouts against luminous color fields. The print belongs to a body of travel impressions that paralleled the work Nagase exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, where Japanese printmaking was reframed as a vehicle for individual artistic vision rather than commercial reproduction.