Okura Schanze

This print depicts the Ōkurayama ski jump on the wooded slopes south of Sapporo, the steel ramp built into a hillside that catches the city's heaviest winter snowfall. Schanze is the German loanword for ski jump that entered Japanese vocabulary through early twentieth-century Austrian and German ski instructors. Maeda's choice reflects his Hokkaido roots — Sapporo was the urban anchor of his home island, and the jump was a recognizable modern landmark. As a [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) of contemporary rather than classical Japan, the image likely combines flat geometric planes for the ramp's engineered curve with looser textured cuts for the snow-covered hillside below. Maeda often allowed woodgrain to read through thin printings, and a Hokkaido winter scene of this kind would benefit from that grain registering as bare birch and frosted spruce. The print sits within his mature Hokkaido catalogue and shows the artist in his [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) mode, treating the engineered landmark with the same considered attention earlier designers gave to temple gates and waterfalls.