Steam drifts up a lamplit lane in a hot-spring village at night

A narrow lane climbs between the timber inns of a hot-spring village at night, their red-brown tiled roofs stacked one above the other and a single upper window glowing yellow. Two figures in dark kimono walk up the lane, and at the lower left a woman in blue bends over baskets beside a bath from which pale steam rises into the dark. A wooden bucket stands by the wall on the right. Above the rooftops a hillside of trees rises to a crest of pines against a deep blue-green night sky.

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was the defining landscape artist of shin-hanga, the movement that carried Japanese woodblock printing into the twentieth century. From 1918 he worked with the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, travelling almost continuously through Japan and turning roadside sketches into prints of unusual atmospheric precision. Snow, rain and failing light were his real subjects, as much as any temple or harbour. In 1956 Japan recognised his woodblock technique as an Intangible Cultural Property. His prints are held by the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.