Cherry blossoms in the evening (Kanbayashi Spa, Shinshu)

Kanbayashi is a hot spring village in the mountains of Nagano (Shinshu), and this composition pairs two motifs Kasamatsu returned to repeatedly: cherry blossoms and twilight. The print likely sets a flowering tree against the dim silhouette of an inn or wooden bathhouse, with lantern light glowing against a sky graded by bokashi from a deepening blue at the top into warmer tones near the horizon. The blossoms are typically printed with a faint pink overlay and pale embossing (karazuri) to suggest mass without losing transparency. Night and dusk subjects became Kasamatsu's signature register after he resumed printmaking in the 1950s with the publisher Unsodo, distinguishing his work from the brighter daytime meisho-e of his Watanabe-published shin-hanga peers. The choice of a Shinshu spa, rather than a Tokyo or Kyoto landmark, reflects the regional, lower-key subject matter typical of his late designs.