Winter has arrived to the mountains of Japan early this year. The roof tops and surrounding mountains are laded with deep fluffy snow making it look like a winter wonderland. It looks like a skier's paradise just waiting for the four wheel drive to show up with suitcases and budweiser. Hardly the case here when the original block prints were made. I would rather see a native out there meditating on the front porch of the structure and not even feeling the cold air or frozen snow.
Hopefully the young trees will not break their branches from the weight of the new heavy snowfall. It's a good thing that the pitch of the roof is steep so the weight of the snow will not collapse the structures. The artist must have captured this scene early in the morning before anybody got up to walk in the snow and mess it up. There seems to be a lot of other structures in close proximity to each other indicating high population density.
Text © Leon Smith 5/16/97
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