Old city Kudara (Korea)

Kudara is the Japanese name for Baekje, the ancient Korean kingdom (18 BCE–660 CE) whose former capital sites lie in present-day South Korea. The title indicates a meisho-e view of a historic Korean townscape, rendered in Hiratsuka's signature bold black-and-white woodcut technique. Hiratsuka traveled in Korea during the colonial period and produced a body of prints documenting Korean architecture, street scenes, and rural landscapes — subjects that broadened the topographical vocabulary of sosaku-hanga beyond Japan. Carved and pulled entirely by the artist according to the movement's jiga-jikoku-jizuri principle (self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed), such works typically reduce roof tiles, lattice walls, and stone foundations to flat planes of sumi black against unprinted washi. The composition belongs to the urban and architectural subjects Hiratsuka pursued throughout his career, alongside his better-known views of Japanese temples and shrines.