Description

Snow lies heavy on steeply rising coastal rocks, their jagged silhouettes standing out in bold contour lines against a hazy sky. A pale sun hangs low behind a bank of clouds, and the sea below lies still and almost colorless. On a small offshore cliff stands a tiny white lighthouse, scarcely larger than a single stroke.

The coloring is deliberately subdued, moving almost exclusively between gray, warm ochre, and snow white. It is precisely this restraint that creates the cold, clear winter mood carrying the image, and that allows the fine rendering of the snow-covered shrubs on the slope to stand out with particular clarity. The contour lines of the rocks are drawn unusually boldly, giving the scene an almost graphic, modern quality.

Wintery coastal scenes are among the quieter subjects of Japanese landscape painting, drawing their tension from the contrast between human smallness and the vastness of sea and sky. At the lower right are the signature and red seal with the addition kinsha, painted in reverence. As a silkscreen print on silk, this hanging scroll, titled Snow-Covered Cliff Coast with Lighthouse, is a quiet, unusual eye-catcher.