Snow-covered thatched roofing is a recurring subject in Japanese landscape prints, particularly those depicting the Shirakawa-gō and Ainokura regions. Katsuda's silkscreen renders the weight of accumulated snow on a steeply pitched minka roof, a subject that demands careful tonal graduation to suggest depth and mass. The serigraph technique, with its capacity for flat, opaque white ink on colored grounds, is well suited to depicting snow, which in woodblock required the reserved white of the paper. The composition likely uses a low horizon line to emphasize the roof form, with surrounding trees or mountains providing scale. Cold blue-grey shadows in the snow contrast with the warm brown of exposed thatch.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
No. 153 - Thatched Roof in the Snow was created by Yukio Katsuda (勝田幸男).
No. 153 - Thatched Roof in the Snow uses Silkscreen, on silkscreen (serigraph).
No. 153 - Thatched Roof in the Snow depicts landscapes and snow scenes.
