Red Field

Red Field, produced between 1985 and 1991, represents a significant departure from Hamaguchi's typical subject matter—isolated objects against dark grounds—in favor of an expansive landscape composition. The title suggests a field of red, possibly poppies or flowering crops seen from an elevated viewpoint, rendered in color mezzotint using multiple plates to achieve a saturated, warm ground broken by repetitive floral or vegetative marks. Hamaguchi's landscape prints from his late career tend toward horizontal formats that emphasize the field's extension across the picture plane. The mezzotint process, which excels at rendering continuous tonal gradations, translates well to the even haze of a flower field, where individual blooms dissolve into overall color texture. Working on this composition over several years—the date range spanning 1985 to 1991—suggests either a long printing process with iterative plate reworking or that the recorded date spans multiple states or editions. By this period Hamaguchi was internationally established, and works like Red Field show him expanding the subject range of a medium he had spent decades mastering.