Snow At Shiba Park, Kawase Hasui ukiyo-e print

Footprints in fresh snow

A lone figure in dark robes, a green umbrella held against the falling flakes, walks towards the great red gate of Shiba Park. A few footprints already mark the white path, yet the scene feels entirely silent. Against all that white, the vermilion of the gate burns like an ember.

Shiba Park, around the temple

Shiba Park was laid out in central Tokyo around Zōjōji, the great Pure Land temple. Kawase Hasui, who was born in the Shiba district, returned to it again and again throughout his career. This design, dated January 1931 and published by Watanabe Shōzaburō, proved so popular that it was used twenty years later as the January image of a 1953 calendar.

A horizontal winter scene

Unlike most of Hasui's temple views, this one is horizontal: the snowy path, the gate and the trees unfold from left to right, giving the scene breadth and calm. It is one of the finest examples of what made him the leading artist of the shin-hanga movement: a familiar place, a little snow, one passer-by, and an atmosphere you can almost feel on your skin. Impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Why it works so well on a wall

Its horizontal format makes it ideal above a sofa, a bed or a sideboard. Bright and restful, with its single note of red, it works in a living room, a bedroom or an entrance hall, alongside white walls, pale wood and natural textures. Frame it in light oak for warmth, or in thin black to bring out the gate.

• Artist: Kawase Hasui (1883–1957)
• Japanese title: Shiba kōen no yuki
• Date: January 1931
• Publisher: Watanabe Shōzaburō, Tokyo
• Original: color woodblock print, horizontal ōban format
• Our print: high-quality reproduction on museum-grade matte paper (not an original woodblock print)

For Hasui's most famous view of the same neighbourhood, discover Zōjōji Temple in Shiba (1925), or explore our full Kawase Hasui prints collection.