Yuki Tsubaki

Yuki tsubaki — literally "snow camellia" — refers to a hardy camellia variety native to the snow country of western Japan that flowers while snow still lies on the ground. The print almost certainly depicts the deep red blossoms and dark glossy leaves of the camellia rising from or surrounded by snow, exploiting the chromatic shock of saturated red against pure white that has long been a touchstone of Japanese pictorial sensibility. Such a subject calls for careful registration and a tight keyblock around each petal and leaf, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) used to model the snow's contour rather than the flowers themselves. The image continues Ohtsu's interest in plants that mark the seasonal calendar of rural Japan, here choosing one whose botanical name itself encodes the snow-country landscape of his prints. Within his oeuvre, yuki tsubaki sits alongside plum-in-snow and waiting-for-spring subjects as part of a meditation on flowering against cold.