Muragami castle in the morning

Murakami Castle, the hilltop fortress in northern Niigata Prefecture whose Edo-period keep was lost to the Meiji-era abolition of castles, survives chiefly through its stone foundation walls climbing Mount Gagyu. Hashimoto's morning view likely concentrates on these terraced ishigaki ramparts caught in the angled light of dawn, a subject suited to his architectural temperament and his preference for stone over restored timber. The print would exhibit the carved geometry typical of his castle series: blocks defined by clean knife lines, broad flat color fields applied with the [baren](/glossary/baren) on [washi](/glossary/washi), and the muted [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations he used for sky and atmospheric distance. As a [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) artist, Hashimoto designed, carved, and printed every block himself, and his castle subjects -- pursued from the 1940s through the 1970s -- form the most sustained architectural cycle within the movement, situating Murakami among dozens of fortifications he documented across Japan.