The Garden with Stepping Stones
(Tobiishi no aru niwa), 1959

Color woodblock print

23 3/8 x 18 3/16 inches (59.4 x 46.2 cm)

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of the Felix and Helen Juda Foundation, 1961

1961-56-2

Here Hashimoto depicts the karesansui or “dry landscape garden.” A highly calculated and fastidiously maintained natural world in miniature, the Zen rock garden is designed to encourage quiet meditation and contemplation. Hashimoto renders the scene’s textures and lines according to the constraints of a two-dimensional surface, flattening the view by abandoning a single vanishing point and embracing the formal and aesthetic limitations of printmaking.

Kimberly Schreiber