Clearing after a Snowfall, Yoshida (Yoshida no yukibare)

Clearing after a Snowfall at Yoshida, published in 1944, depicts the town of Yoshida — either Yoshida-cho in Shizuoka at the foot of the Fuji region, or another Yoshida settlement — under the clear sky following a snowstorm. The yukibare subject applied to a small town rather than a famous landmark gives the 1944 wartime composition a quiet, domestic quality: the ordinary vernacular architecture of a provincial Japanese town transformed by fresh snow into a composition of pure white and dark timber. The wartime date suggests this was produced during a period of restricted travel when local subjects had to substitute for more distant landscapes.