Evening Snow at Ishinomaki (Ishinomaki no bosetsu), from the series "Collection of Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen)"

Evening Snow at Ishinomaki (Ishinomaki no bosetsu), designed by Kawase Hasui in 1935 for the series Collection of Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition (Nihon fukei shu higashi Nihon hen), is preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago. The woodblock print depicts the harbor town of Ishinomaki on the Pacific coast of Tohoku under a heavy snowfall at dusk. Kawase Hasui arranges low buildings and moored fishing boats along a slow waterway, their roofs and gunwales weighted with snow while a darkening sky meets the horizon. The title's reference to bosetsu, or evening snow, places the print within the long tradition of Japanese snowscape compositions, here reinterpreted in the format and palette of the shin-hanga, or new prints, movement led by publisher Watanabe Shozaburo. The Eastern Japan Edition surveyed sites across Tohoku and Hokkaido, and Ishinomaki, an active port and fishing center, gave Hasui an opportunity to work with the kind of muted, low-light atmosphere for which he became known. Watanabe Shozaburo's Tokyo workshop translated the artist's sketches into the print through specialist carvers and printers, layering the cool grays and ink-blacks that suggest both the wetness of falling snow and the dimming evening light. Kawase Hasui's restrained use of figures, his attention to working boats and warehouse architecture rather than tourist views, and his confident handling of the snow-laden sky together make the design a representative example of how shin-hanga designers updated the traditional theme of evening snow for the twentieth-century print market.