Full moon

A second moon study within Hiratsuka's recurring engagement with celestial subjects. The composition treats the moon disc as either reserved white paper or as a positive ink form, depending on whether the surrounding sky carries ink or remains uncut from the block. Such reductive compositions test the printmaker's control of the [baren](/glossary/baren), since uneven pressure produces gradients that compromise the pure circle. Moon subjects were a touchstone Hiratsuka returned to across an eight-decade career, allowing him to revisit one motif under varying compositional emphases. The willingness to issue prints under the same or near-identical title reflects [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga)'s self-publishing economy: artists released variations to a small collector base in limited numbered editions, rather than producing single catalog editions through a commercial publisher in the manner of contemporaneous [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) production.