Snow at Sekiguchi (Sekiguchi no yuki)

The first design bearing the subtitle Sekiguchi no yuki establishes the template for Hasui's treatment of this Tokyo neighborhood under winter snowfall. Sekiguchi, situated along the Kanda River in what is now Bunkyo ward, offered the kind of intimate, non-monumental scenery Hasui favored: narrow stone-lined waterways, low wooden structures, and mature trees whose bare or snow-laden branches break the composition vertically. In the shin-hanga tradition, Hasui worked from on-site sketches to produce a final gouache design submitted to publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, who oversaw production through specialist craftsmen. The bokashi technique — wet-on-wet gradation applied by the printer before each impression — was central to rendering the soft, diffuse quality of a snowy sky. Hasui's characteristic quiet atmosphere and the near-absence of human figures direct attention entirely to the landscape's tonal and textural properties, a formal approach that distinguishes his work from earlier ukiyo-e meisho-e traditions.