Takaxxx Castle

Takaxxx Castle, printed in 1934, is one of Hashimoto's early castle compositions — the "xxx" in the title indicating uncertain characters in the castle's full name as recorded in existing documentation. The early 1930s prints represent the formative phase of his architectural documentation project, when he traveled extensively to sketch and study Japan's surviving castles before the destruction that wartime bombing would bring to many of them within the following decade. Whatever specific castle is depicted here, it belongs to his systematic effort to create a visual record of Japan's fortification heritage.