A Spring Picnic in the Field

A Spring Picnic in the Field, issued around 1920 by the Hasegawa publisher in Tokyo, is one of the more openly lyrical of Shoda Koho's [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) seasonal designs, a print that brings the firm's atmospheric mode to a gently inhabited rural scene. The composition presents a small gathering of figures in soft kimono seated and standing on a grassy field at the edge of a low rise, with cherry trees or other early spring blossoms framing the gathering and a distant view of fields and hills receding behind them. Koho organizes the sheet with a horizontal calm, the figures arranged informally so that the viewer reads them less as portraits than as a quiet seasonal incident within the broader landscape. The palette is held to soft greens, pale pinks, and warm beige, with the figures' garments providing the principal accents of muted colour against the prevailing tonal softness. The Hasegawa carvers articulated the figures' silhouettes and the surrounding flowering branches with precise keyblock work, while the printers used overlaid [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations to model the sky and middle distance, layering washes that pass softly from pale apricot at the horizon to muted blue overhead. The design participates in the long Japanese tradition of hanami subjects and translates that classical theme into the new shin-hanga atmospheric sensibility that Hasegawa cultivated through the Taisho period. Issued in the small [chuban](/glossary/chuban) format characteristic of the firm's export catalogue, the print was marketed both to foreign visitors and to a domestic audience receptive to the firm's seasonal mode. The impression documented in the Japanese Art Open Database (https://[ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org/image/jaodb/Koho_Shoda-No_Series-A_Spring_picnic_in_the_field-00036913-041017-F06) preserves the soft tonal washes and delicate floral accents that distinguish strong impressions of this gentle springtime design.