Setting sun at Shiretoko

The Shiretoko Peninsula, on the northeast coast of Hokkaido, is a remote landscape of sea cliffs, drift ice, and mixed coastal forest, designated a UNESCO World Heritage area. A setting-sun composition allows Hashimoto to work in horizontal bands — sun, sea, distant headland silhouette, foreground rock — that suit the woodblock's facility with broad color planes and bokashi gradations moving from saturated orange or vermilion at the horizon up into deeper blue. Landscapes in his later work step away from core architectural subjects toward topography, joining a sosaku-hanga tradition of Hokkaido scenes developed by Saitō Kiyoshi and others. Multiple blocks would carry sky, sea, and headland, with the strongest carving reserved for foreground silhouette. Self-printing every block, Hashimoto maintained the sosaku-hanga ideal of jiga-jikoku-jizuri (self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed) throughout his nearly six decades of practice. The print contributes to a body of late landscapes that complements the architectural and floral work for which he is principally known.