Early Spring at Mount Kamagatake

This 1964 print captures the transition from winter to spring on Mount Kamagatake, one of the peaks of the Suzuka Mountains in Mie Prefecture. The mountain in early spring is a study in contrasts: bare rock and lingering snow above, the first tentative vegetation below, the air still cold but the light changed. Kitaoka renders the seasonal transition through careful orchestration of color temperature, the cool blues and grays of winter giving way at the margins to the first pale warmth of spring.