Nagatoro (Saitama)

Nagatoro in Saitama is best known for the long stretch of stratified rock shelves -- the so-called Iwadatami, or rock tatami -- along the Arakawa River, with steep wooded banks rising behind. Hashimoto's print likely uses the gorge as its principal motif: the angular slabs of layered sandstone in the foreground, the green river running through them, and the dark mass of the wooded slope above, perhaps with a small structure or bridge tucked into the composition. The geological subject suits his architectural eye -- the rock platforms read as carved planes with the same geometric clarity he brings to ishigaki walls. He would use the wood grain of the cherry block as the grain of the stone, with a carved keyblock for the joint lines and bokashi for the water and sky. Self-cut and self-printed on washi, the sheet sits within the meisho-e tradition of named-place views, but reframed in the sosaku-hanga idiom of the artist as sole maker.