Nagatoro (Saitama)

Nagatoro is a scenic stretch of the Arakawa River in Saitama Prefecture, known for its rugged rock platforms called Iwadatami and the cliffs that border the gorge. Inagaki's treatment of the subject places the print within the meisho-e tradition of famous-views imagery while reinterpreting it through sosaku-hanga simplification. The composition likely arranges the river's flat planes, the geometric stratification of the rock terraces, and surrounding foliage into a structured pattern of color blocks. Bokashi gradation would lend depth to water or sky, while the keyblock's heavy contours organize the disparate elements into a unified design. Working in the self-carved, self-printed manner of the Creative Print movement, Inagaki would have selected the wood, cut each block, and pulled impressions on washi himself with a baren. Landscape and travel subjects appear less frequently in his work than his cat prints, but Nagatoro shows his command of the traditional Japanese topographical genres that had defined ukiyo-e in earlier centuries.