Yaene on Hachijô Island

Yaene is the small port settlement on the western coast of Hachijō-jima, the volcanic island roughly 290 kilometers south of Tokyo. Hashimoto produced a series of Hachijō prints in the postwar decades, drawn to the island's distinctive landscape: the twin volcanic peaks of Hachijō-Fuji and Mihara-yama, the dark basalt sea cliffs, and the low-eaved farmhouses thatched against typhoon winds. A Yaene print likely centers on the harbor or the village rooftops viewed from the slope above, with the Pacific occupying the upper register. The Hachijō series departed from Hashimoto's better-known Kyoto and castle subjects, letting him work with a coarser landscape vocabulary — weatherworn stone walls, plank shutters, fishing boats — rendered in his characteristic flat, faceted color planes. The numeral in the slug indicates this is one of multiple compositions Hashimoto made of the same village, consistent with his habit of returning to favored locations across years and treating them in different seasons or from different vantages within his sosaku-hanga practice.