Young woman and irises

Hashimoto produced a sustained body of figural prints pairing young women with seasonal flowers — irises, peonies, camellias — that runs in counterpoint to his architectural work. The iris (kakitsubata or hanashōbu) carries strong literary associations from the Tales of Ise and Edo-period painting, and June iris-viewing at gardens such as Meiji Jingu Inner Garden remained a popular motif into the postwar period. Compositionally these prints typically place the seated or standing figure against a tall screen of upright iris stalks, with the sword-shaped leaves carved as long, decisive cuts and the blossoms picked out in saturated indigo or violet. The figure's kimono is rendered in flat planes with patterning kept simple, in line with the sosaku-hanga preference for carved economy over the dense detail of shin-hanga bijin-ga. Hashimoto carved and printed the work himself, and the women in these prints are types rather than portraits — vehicles for studying the geometry of fabric and flower.