Mountain lake B (Lake Chuzenji)

Lake Chuzenji (Chuzenji-ko) sits at roughly 1,270 meters in the Nikko mountains of Tochigi Prefecture, formed by an eruption of Mount Nantai some twenty thousand years ago. The print depicts the lake set against the surrounding peaks, a subject that allowed Hashimoto to work with mass, water, and atmospheric distance rather than his more frequent architectural geometry. The 'B' designation places this within a paired or serial treatment of the location. Mountain and lake subjects in Hashimoto's catalog typically employ broad bokashi gradations across sky and water, with carved outlines reserved for trees, ridgelines, and foreground rocks. Working in the sosaku-hanga tradition, he designed, carved, and printed each block, using overlay registration to build depth without resorting to Western linear perspective. Nikko was a recurring destination for woodblock artists from Hiroshige onward, and Hashimoto's twentieth-century treatment of Chuzenji situates him within that long topographical lineage.