The First Snow of the Year

The First Snow of the Year addresses hatsuyuki, the season's inaugural snowfall, a subject treated with reverence across centuries of Japanese poetry and printmaking. Morimura's snow scenes characteristically reduce architectural and arboreal forms to flat silhouettes whose contours carry the weight of fresh accumulation, with negative space — the unprinted [washi](/glossary/washi) itself — supplying the snow's brightness. The print likely depicts a temple or shrine precinct, perhaps a tiled roof, stone lantern, or kawara wall newly capped in white, framed by leafless branches whose dark linework asserts itself against the pale ground. Morimura uses sparse color, often a few muted blues and grays, with selective [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) suggesting the dim luminance of an overcast winter sky. Hand-pulled across multiple blocks, the print depends on precise registration so that the white shapes read as continuous unbroken snow rather than printed forms. Within Morimura's seasonal cycle, snow images function as the quietest pole, balancing the chromatic exuberance of his autumn and festival prints. The work participates in a long [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) and [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) lineage of yuki-e while maintaining his unmistakable architectural emphasis.