Fujiyoshida, Yamanishi

This Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi composition again places Mount Fuji over the town at its northern base, viewed from a vantage that emphasizes the mountain's full conical profile rising above the rooftops of one of Japan's classic shrine and pilgrimage gateways to Fuji. Kasamatsu would use bokashi gradations across the upper register — multiple pulls of the baren producing the transition from clear sky to the snow-bearing summit and across the shadowed flanks. The lower register, with its dense town fabric, requires sharper keyblock work and tighter registration of color blocks for tile, timber, and street. As a paired subject — Kasamatsu issued at least two views of Fujiyoshida — the print reflects the publisher and self-publishing practice of producing seasonal or weather-variant states of a successful design. Within his oeuvre of approximately 280 designs, his Fuji subjects connect him to the long meisho-e tradition while showing how the shin-hanga generation, including his Kiyokata-studio peers Hasui and Shinsui, recast the country's most depicted mountain in twentieth-century atmospheric terms.