Matsumoto Castle

Matsumoto Castle, known as the Crow Castle in Nagano, is one of the few original keep complexes surviving from the late sixteenth century, its black lacquered walls and steeply tiered roofs forming a distinctive silhouette against the surrounding moat. Hashimoto returned to Matsumoto multiple times across his career, treating its dark plaster and white stone base as a problem in contrasted block printing - solid [sumi](/glossary/sumi)-black masses set against pale tile, water, and sky. The composition likely centers the keep frontally or in three-quarter view, allowing the stepped roofs and gabled hafu to register as overlapping planes. Mokuhanga technique in his hands meant carving each block himself in the [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) manner, then printing with a [baren](/glossary/baren) on dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) to achieve the deep saturated blacks the subject requires. Matsumoto sits within his broader castle series alongside Himeji, Hikone, Inuyama, and Osaka, the architectural subjects central to his reputation as a sosaku-hanga printmaker.