River landscape with fisherman

A characteristic landscape from Hiratsuka's mature work, this print likely depicts a solitary angler on a riverbank, rendered in the bold black-and-white woodcut idiom for which the artist is known. Hiratsuka built compositions through the contrast of inked and uninked passages rather than through tonal gradation, eschewing the bokashi shading central to ukiyo-e and shin-hanga traditions. Water, foliage, and figure are typically articulated through deliberate, sculptural cuts that retain visible knife marks, foregrounding the carved surface as the source of expression. This sosaku-hanga approach—wherein the artist designs, carves, and prints the work himself—was the principle Hiratsuka championed throughout his eight-decade career. Riverscapes recur frequently in his output, often featuring a small human figure dwarfed by water and stone, a compositional strategy that aligns him with the meisho-e tradition of place-based landscape while transforming it through modern graphic abstraction. The print belongs to the broad body of nature subjects he produced alongside his extensive temple and shrine series.