The Spa at Izu Yugano

Yugano is a hot-spring village in the Izu Peninsula, south of Tokyo, known for its riverside ryokan and the Kawazu River that runs through the valley. Hiratsuka's print likely depicts the village setting — wooden inn buildings, the river, and surrounding hillsides — in his high-contrast black-and-white woodcut style. Provincial Japanese landscapes were a recurring subject for sosaku-hanga artists, who saw such scenes as continuous with the meisho-e tradition while distancing themselves from the pleasure-quarter imagery of late ukiyo-e. Hiratsuka would have cut the block himself and pulled the impression by hand on washi, using a baren to apply uneven pressure that varies the density of black across the sheet. Izu was a frequent destination for early-twentieth-century printmakers working in both shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga modes, valued for its mountain scenery and architectural variety.