Departing Spring

Departing Spring, published in Spring 1925, depicts the final days of the cherry blossom season — the moment when the blossoms begin to fall and the petals drift in a soft blizzard of pink and white, signaling the year's most celebrated season's inevitable end. The "departing spring" (yukiharuki or late spring) subject is among the most melancholy in the Japanese seasonal calendar, the ephemeral beauty of the sakura making its passing a meditation on impermanence. Hasui's 1925 composition likely depicts a parkside or riverside cherry grove with petals falling on still water or a garden path, the bokashi sky capturing the soft diffused light of late spring.