Shichirigahama - Flying

Shichirigahama is the long curving beach on the Sagami coast between Kamakura and Enoshima, with Mount Fuji visible across the bay on clear days. The 'Flying' subtitle most likely refers to kites lifted on the strong onshore winds the beach is known for, though it could equally signal birds in flight along the shoreline. Morimura's likely treatment renders the shoreline as a graceful arc separating sand from water, with Enoshima's silhouette or Fuji's cone in the distance, and the flying forms reduced to crisp shapes against a vast sky. His characteristic use of large unbroken color fields—achievable in mokuhanga only through careful sizing of the washi and even baren pressure—suits this kind of expansive coastal subject. The print sits among his marine and shoreline works, a smaller but consistent category alongside his temple and garden views, and continues the long tradition of Shichirigahama as a meisho subject reaching back through Hiroshige to earlier ukiyo-e.