Snow at Zojoji Temple — 増上寺の雪

One of multiple impressions under the subtitle 増上寺の雪, this oban-format woodblock print places Zojoji's main gate within a spare winter landscape. Hasui approached the Zojoji subject repeatedly across his career, and the subtitle 増上寺の雪 suggests a deliberate composition rather than a single-occasion study. The gate's three bays—its name Sangedatsumon refers to release from the three passions—would be depicted with architectural precision, the paired lanterns flanking the central passage carrying small drifts of snow. Hasui's training as a painter before his shift to printmaking informs his confident line work: the structural timbers of the gate are rendered with a brush-derived authority unusual in the shin-hanga idiom, where compositional design and block cutting were often separated between designer and craftsman. The surrounding grounds would be quiet, the monumental gate emphasizing its own isolation in winter stillness.