Lit windows and falling snow on a dark village road

Snow falls through a dark blue evening over Terajima village. Hasui prints the sky almost black-blue with white flakes scattered across it, and sets against it the pale snow-covered roofs and the road running into the distance. A telegraph pole stands at the centre with its wires crossing the sky. Two windows glow warm yellow in the buildings at either side, a single dark figure walks the snow-covered road, and the foreground is a bank of white snow over a low fence.

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.