Snow in Spring

Snow in Spring (春の雪) takes up a poetically charged image in classical Japanese seasonal vocabulary—late-season snow that falls when the calendar has already shifted toward warmth. The motif appears throughout waka, haiku, and Noh, and Akiyama's treatment of it in his folk-inflected sōsaku-hanga manner places him within a long lineage of artists working seasonal kigo into pictorial form. Prints in this register from his oeuvre tend to be small in scale, printed on absorbent washi, and built from a few flat color areas overprinted with sumi line. The block-cut character of the line—deliberate, slightly clumsy in the manner of folk woodcuts—distinguishes Akiyama from the more refined shin-hanga winter scenes of Hasui or Yoshida. A handwritten poem, often addressing transience or out-of-season weather, frequently accompanies images of this kind, integrating the print into the haiga tradition of word-and-image.