Kansa Shrine, Lake Tazawa

At the center of the picture a small snow-covered shrine stands jutting out over the lake, with a wooden pier extending to the right. Snow lies on the near shore and the trees around the shrine, and snow-laden pine branches hang from the upper right. At the left of the lake, a torii stands at the water's edge, and a range of snowy mountains can be seen hazy in the distance. Large flakes of snow fall without pause from the sky.

The sky and distant view are gathered in a grayish blue, and the lake surface in the foreground is made a bright blue-green, setting off the white of the snow all the more. The falling snow is expressed by a printing that leaves the white of the paper, giving the whole picture a quiet movement. In the left margin are the title "Lake Tazawa, Kansa-gu" and the date "made in Showa 2," and Hasui's seal is stamped at the lower right.

Hasui was born in Tokyo, studied Japanese-style painting under Kaburaki Kiyokata, and then produced landscape woodblock prints under the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo. He traveled and sketched across Japan and excelled at snow, rain, and night scenes. The "Souvenirs of Travel III" series of this work chose several Akita scenes, such as Hachirogata and the Oga Peninsula.

It is one print in "Kawase Hasui Prints," owned by the National Diet Library, and is available in the library's Digital Collections.