Snow at Akabane

Akabane sits in Kita ward in northern Tokyo, historically a junction of the Nakasendo highway and, by Ito's time, a railway and industrial district along the Arakawa river. Snow at Akabane therefore likely belongs to the urban-edge snow scenes that became one of the signatures of late [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga): a quiet street, bridge, or station approach softened under fresh snow rather than a pure rural view. Snow prints of this kind depend on the unprinted white of the [washi](/glossary/washi) for the snowfall itself, with the carver outlining roof lines, telegraph poles, and figures in the lightest of keyblock impressions so the page reads as snow rather than paper. A pale grey-blue [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) is typically run across the sky, sometimes overprinted with fine specks of pigment to suggest falling flakes. Ito's snow scenes form a substantial part of his catalogue and place him in direct dialogue with Tsuchiya Koitsu and Kawase Hasui, both of whom worked the same subject for Watanabe with comparable attention to atmosphere over incident.