Winter Birds in Floating Sleep (Ukine no fuyu dori)

Winter Birds in Floating Sleep (Ukine no fuyu dori), made by Hatsuyama Shigeru in 1962, is one of the artist's most quietly atmospheric late prints, treating the kachō-e (bird-and-flower) tradition with the reduced, almost dreamlike sensibility he had developed across decades of work. The composition concentrates on a small group of waterbirds at rest, their bodies simplified into rounded shapes that float against passages of muted blue and grey, with subtle textural variations suggesting cold water and a dimmed winter sky. There is no overt narrative; the birds are caught in the moment between sleep and waking, and the title Ukine no fuyu dori — 'winter birds in floating sleep' — captures both the literal subject and the print's emotional register. Hatsuyama's approach is characteristic of his mature manner: flat shapes, restrained palette, an emphasis on the rhythms of arrangement, and an underlying warmth inherited from his long career as a children's book illustrator. By the early 1960s he had been a member of Onchi Kōshirō's Ichimokukai (First Thursday Society) for more than two decades and was a senior figure in the sōsaku-hanga (creative print) movement, designing, carving, and printing each work himself. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds this impression as edition 12/13 (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/18214), preserves Winter Birds in Floating Sleep among its representative holdings of his mature work. For students of Hatsuyama Shigeru, the 1962 print is a particularly clear example of how a former picture-book artist could carry the discipline of accessible illustration into a slow, contemplative kachō-e for adult viewers.