Matsushima, Futagojima by Kawase Hasui: a full moon within clouds, a bright reflection across blue water, two pine-covered rocky islands in the foreground, and a narrow boat with two figures at right.
Matsushima, Futagojima by Kawase Hasui: a full moon within clouds, a bright reflection across blue water, two pine-covered rocky islands in the foreground, and a narrow boat with two figures at right.

Matsushima, Futagojima — Kawase Hasui (1933)

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Premium quality canvas print of “Matsushima, Futagojima” by Kawase Hasui

Moonlight crosses a blue bay between pine-covered islands as a small boat passes nearby. Kawase Hasui’s Matsushima, Futagojima brings the complete coastal composition into your home as a landscape canvas reproduction over a sturdy 1.5-inch wood stretcher.

Product details: Canvas reproduction of the complete image composition, over a sturdy 1.5-inch wood stretcher. Available in 24 × 16 in. ($259 CAD) and 36 × 24 in. ($299 CAD). No returns accepted.

More About the Art

Matsushima, Futagojima brings together moonlight, pine-covered islands, and a small boat in a spacious coastal landscape. Kawase Hasui’s horizontal composition opens across blue water toward low hills on the far shore. A pale full moon appears within a break in the clouds. Its reflection forms a bright, uneven passage through the bay, linking the distant water with the rippling foreground between two rocky islands.

The islands give the view its strongest shapes. On the left, a broad stretch of rock supports a grove of pines, with branches extending above the water and entering from the edge. The island nearer the right is more compact and rises steeply from the bay. Its trunks lean at different angles, supporting an intricate canopy of dark foliage. Small openings between branches allow the clear blue water to show through.

The pines are carefully varied. Some branches reach sideways in long, almost horizontal lines, while others turn upward or gather into dense clusters of needles. Their irregular silhouettes make each tree distinct. Below them, the rocks form larger, simpler masses, with sloping faces and uneven edges. This relationship between fine branching and solid stone gives the foreground both delicacy and weight, creating a strong frame around the open water.

At the right, two figures occupy a narrow boat. An oar extends beyond its dark hull, and long horizontal marks around the vessel suggest gentle movement. The people remain small within the wider view, yet their presence gives the bay a human scale. Beyond them, open water reaches toward the distant shore. Smaller islands and low hills become progressively quieter forms along the horizon, creating depth without crowding the scene.

Light moves through this arrangement in several ways. Cream edges trace parts of the cloud opening around the moon. Short pale strokes spread across the distant water, gathering into a narrower path nearer the foreground. Dark reflections beneath the islands break into wavering lines. The surrounding blues range from bright turquoise to deeper tones around the pines and lower water. Fine texture remains visible across the supplied image, enriching the broad areas of sky and sea.

Hasui designed Matsushima, Futagojima in December 1933. Published by Watanabe Shōzaburō, it belongs to Collected Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition. The Japanese title is Matsushima Futagojima, written 松嶋双子嶋. Museum catalogues also identify the design as Futago Island: Moonlight at Matsushima. This canvas reproduces the complete landscape composition shown here, preserving the relationship between the moon, both foreground islands, the boat, and the broad surrounding bay.

Matsushima Bay lies in Miyagi Prefecture and is celebrated for its pine-covered islets, traditionally counted among Japan’s Three Scenic Views. Hasui makes the character of that landscape immediately recognizable while giving particular attention to its atmosphere after dark. The broad format allows the eye to move slowly across trees, reflections, distant land, and clouds. Mounted on canvas, the image brings a generous expanse of blue into a room. Its clear forms remain engaging at a distance, while the delicate branches and broken light reward a closer, unhurried look.

More About the Artist

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was a Japanese artist whose colour woodblock landscapes bring together a clear sense of place and a sensitive response to atmosphere. His subjects include temple grounds, city waterways, country roads, mountain settlements, and coastal views. Across this variety, he paid particular attention to the way light and weather change familiar forms. His complete Matsushima, Futagojima design of 1933 belongs to this sustained exploration of Japan’s landscapes through the woodblock medium.

Hasui was born in Tokyo with the given name Bunjiro. His artistic education included Western-style painting under Okada Saburosuke and Japanese-style painting with Kaburaki Kiyokata, whose studio he joined in 1910. Kiyokata gave him his artist’s name. These different strands of training helped him combine strong outlines and carefully arranged forms with an interest in distance, tonal change, and the observed character of a setting.

The landscape prints of Itō Shinsui, another artist in Kiyokata’s circle, encouraged his interest in woodblock design. In 1918, Hasui began collaborating with the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō. Their long association became central to shin-hanga, or “new prints,” the twentieth-century renewal of Japanese woodblock production. Artists, specialist carvers, printers, and publishers worked together, continuing a shared craft tradition while developing new approaches to colour, composition, and atmospheric effects.

A finished print therefore depended on the coordination of several kinds of expertise. A drawing had to be interpreted through carved blocks, and successive colours needed to form a coherent image. A delicate pine branch and a broad expanse of water called for different treatments. In the Matsushima design, dense foliage, solid rock, small figures, and changing reflections remain distinct while contributing to the same coastal atmosphere. Such relationships are part of the pleasure of looking closely at his work.

Travel and sketching supplied Hasui with a continuing store of subjects. He journeyed widely across Japan, recording views that later became woodblock designs. Matsushima offered an especially rich landscape of pines, islands, water, and distant shores. The 1933 print forms part of Collected Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition, connecting this bay with a wider body of regional scenes. Museum collections preserve the complete design within that series, making its original format and context available for study.

His career also involved major losses. The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 destroyed Watanabe’s premises, woodblocks, and print stock, while Hasui lost his house and sketchbooks. He continued travelling and designing afterward. Through the later 1920s and following decades, his landscapes explored a broad range of seasons and conditions. The productive years of the early 1930s included many works in which water, architecture, and trees became closely connected through light and carefully chosen viewpoints.

Hasui continued working after the Second World War and remained active into the 1950s. In 1953, the production of Snow at Zōjōji Temple was documented by Japan’s Cultural Properties Protection Committee, preserving a record of the collaborative craft behind a finished print. His career ultimately encompassed more than six hundred designs. Museum collections now allow this extensive body of work to be appreciated in both its individual settings and its recurring visual interests.

Matsushima, Futagojima brings many of his recurring interests into one expansive composition: the patterned edges of pines, the meeting of rock and water, a small human presence, and the changing shape of reflected light. The moon and clouds complete a view whose individual forms remain clear within a shared atmosphere. This balance between close observation and carefully arranged space helps explain why his landscapes continue to invite repeated, unhurried looking.

Sources

Size:

Premium quality canvas print of “Matsushima, Futagojima” by Kawase Hasui

Moonlight crosses a blue bay between pine-covered islands as a small boat passes nearby. Kawase Hasui’s Matsushima, Futagojima brings the complete coastal composition into your home as a landscape canvas reproduction over a sturdy 1.5-inch wood stretcher.

Product details: Canvas reproduction of the complete image composition, over a sturdy 1.5-inch wood stretcher. Available in 24 × 16 in. ($259 CAD) and 36 × 24 in. ($299 CAD). No returns accepted.

More About the Art

Matsushima, Futagojima brings together moonlight, pine-covered islands, and a small boat in a spacious coastal landscape. Kawase Hasui’s horizontal composition opens across blue water toward low hills on the far shore. A pale full moon appears within a break in the clouds. Its reflection forms a bright, uneven passage through the bay, linking the distant water with the rippling foreground between two rocky islands.

The islands give the view its strongest shapes. On the left, a broad stretch of rock supports a grove of pines, with branches extending above the water and entering from the edge. The island nearer the right is more compact and rises steeply from the bay. Its trunks lean at different angles, supporting an intricate canopy of dark foliage. Small openings between branches allow the clear blue water to show through.

The pines are carefully varied. Some branches reach sideways in long, almost horizontal lines, while others turn upward or gather into dense clusters of needles. Their irregular silhouettes make each tree distinct. Below them, the rocks form larger, simpler masses, with sloping faces and uneven edges. This relationship between fine branching and solid stone gives the foreground both delicacy and weight, creating a strong frame around the open water.

At the right, two figures occupy a narrow boat. An oar extends beyond its dark hull, and long horizontal marks around the vessel suggest gentle movement. The people remain small within the wider view, yet their presence gives the bay a human scale. Beyond them, open water reaches toward the distant shore. Smaller islands and low hills become progressively quieter forms along the horizon, creating depth without crowding the scene.

Light moves through this arrangement in several ways. Cream edges trace parts of the cloud opening around the moon. Short pale strokes spread across the distant water, gathering into a narrower path nearer the foreground. Dark reflections beneath the islands break into wavering lines. The surrounding blues range from bright turquoise to deeper tones around the pines and lower water. Fine texture remains visible across the supplied image, enriching the broad areas of sky and sea.

Hasui designed Matsushima, Futagojima in December 1933. Published by Watanabe Shōzaburō, it belongs to Collected Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition. The Japanese title is Matsushima Futagojima, written 松嶋双子嶋. Museum catalogues also identify the design as Futago Island: Moonlight at Matsushima. This canvas reproduces the complete landscape composition shown here, preserving the relationship between the moon, both foreground islands, the boat, and the broad surrounding bay.

Matsushima Bay lies in Miyagi Prefecture and is celebrated for its pine-covered islets, traditionally counted among Japan’s Three Scenic Views. Hasui makes the character of that landscape immediately recognizable while giving particular attention to its atmosphere after dark. The broad format allows the eye to move slowly across trees, reflections, distant land, and clouds. Mounted on canvas, the image brings a generous expanse of blue into a room. Its clear forms remain engaging at a distance, while the delicate branches and broken light reward a closer, unhurried look.

More About the Artist

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was a Japanese artist whose colour woodblock landscapes bring together a clear sense of place and a sensitive response to atmosphere. His subjects include temple grounds, city waterways, country roads, mountain settlements, and coastal views. Across this variety, he paid particular attention to the way light and weather change familiar forms. His complete Matsushima, Futagojima design of 1933 belongs to this sustained exploration of Japan’s landscapes through the woodblock medium.

Hasui was born in Tokyo with the given name Bunjiro. His artistic education included Western-style painting under Okada Saburosuke and Japanese-style painting with Kaburaki Kiyokata, whose studio he joined in 1910. Kiyokata gave him his artist’s name. These different strands of training helped him combine strong outlines and carefully arranged forms with an interest in distance, tonal change, and the observed character of a setting.

The landscape prints of Itō Shinsui, another artist in Kiyokata’s circle, encouraged his interest in woodblock design. In 1918, Hasui began collaborating with the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō. Their long association became central to shin-hanga, or “new prints,” the twentieth-century renewal of Japanese woodblock production. Artists, specialist carvers, printers, and publishers worked together, continuing a shared craft tradition while developing new approaches to colour, composition, and atmospheric effects.

A finished print therefore depended on the coordination of several kinds of expertise. A drawing had to be interpreted through carved blocks, and successive colours needed to form a coherent image. A delicate pine branch and a broad expanse of water called for different treatments. In the Matsushima design, dense foliage, solid rock, small figures, and changing reflections remain distinct while contributing to the same coastal atmosphere. Such relationships are part of the pleasure of looking closely at his work.

Travel and sketching supplied Hasui with a continuing store of subjects. He journeyed widely across Japan, recording views that later became woodblock designs. Matsushima offered an especially rich landscape of pines, islands, water, and distant shores. The 1933 print forms part of Collected Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition, connecting this bay with a wider body of regional scenes. Museum collections preserve the complete design within that series, making its original format and context available for study.

His career also involved major losses. The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 destroyed Watanabe’s premises, woodblocks, and print stock, while Hasui lost his house and sketchbooks. He continued travelling and designing afterward. Through the later 1920s and following decades, his landscapes explored a broad range of seasons and conditions. The productive years of the early 1930s included many works in which water, architecture, and trees became closely connected through light and carefully chosen viewpoints.

Hasui continued working after the Second World War and remained active into the 1950s. In 1953, the production of Snow at Zōjōji Temple was documented by Japan’s Cultural Properties Protection Committee, preserving a record of the collaborative craft behind a finished print. His career ultimately encompassed more than six hundred designs. Museum collections now allow this extensive body of work to be appreciated in both its individual settings and its recurring visual interests.

Matsushima, Futagojima brings many of his recurring interests into one expansive composition: the patterned edges of pines, the meeting of rock and water, a small human presence, and the changing shape of reflected light. The moon and clouds complete a view whose individual forms remain clear within a shared atmosphere. This balance between close observation and carefully arranged space helps explain why his landscapes continue to invite repeated, unhurried looking.

Sources