Hasui 巴水: Winter Moon over Toyama Plain 戸山ヶ原

Artist: Kawase Hasui 巴水
Title: Winter Moon over Toyama Plain 戸山ヶ原 Fuyu no tsuki (Toyomagahara)
Date: 1931, Winter 昭和六年十二月

The full moon glows with mesmerizing power between branches of trees and their elegant winter silhouettes. A soft mist obscures the distant city lights, which shine with an unfaded yellow gleam. The coloration of the foreground blends beautifully from earth to mist, and then to sky. Hasui first depicted this scene in 1920. About that 1920 design, he wrote: “I wanted to depict the winter moon, which could be compared to an old woman’s makeup in its graceful but frail nature. Even though night had just fallen, the scene was deserted in the cold, withered and wintry group of trees, eerie in the blurred lights visible in the distant forest. The moon casts a pale blue light.” The Toyama Plain is today part of Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward and no doubt is today much more like a concrete forest compared to this serene view of nature. This is the first edition, bearing the  earliest prewar Doi Sadaichi seal; the same seal is on the work shown in the Hotei catalog. It also bears the carver and printer seals of Fujikawa and Goto, lower left.

Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition.
Dimensions: ôban 39 x 26.3 cm
Publisher: Doi Sadaichi
Literature: Hotei #260. See LACMA, MFA, Chazen, Saint Louis Art Museums online.
Signature: Hasui

SKU: HAS612