Spring Mountain

Filling the picture, a gently sloping mountain rises, covered with mixed woodland. The thin branches of leafless trees are drawn in countless ink lines, and among them dots of yellow-green, pale pink, and yellow are scattered, conveying new buds beginning to swell. Dark green cedars stand here and there, and a distant mountain hazed in blue shows at the back right. Nothing is painted in the sky, and a signature and seal are at the lower left.

The Akita Museum of Modern Art introduces this work as showing Hyakusui seeing the arrival of spring in the mountains of his hometown. The mountain depicted is not identified, but the work is said to carry the feelings of Hyakusui, who was born and raised in Kakunodate, for spring in snow country. Using no strong colors and expressing the air of the season through the layering of fine brushstrokes, it shows Hyakusui's characteristic emphasis on sketching from life.

Hyakusui was a Japanese-style painter active from the Meiji era to the early Showa era who advocated the importance of sketching from life, observing nature closely. He was also active as a tanka poet of the Araragi school. In October 1933, the year he painted this work, he collapsed while visiting Yokote, Akita Prefecture, and died there.

The work is owned by the Akita Museum of Modern Art in Yokote and was also shown in the "Hirafuku Hyakusui" exhibition held at the Miyagi Museum of Art in 2019.