Cranes on snow-covered pine

Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1834

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Look at how bare paper stands for the snow along the branches, and follow the two long necks bending back into the feathers.

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Besides his landscape series, Hokusai designed prints of birds and plants, such as this one of about 1834, printed on the tall, narrow sheet the Art Institute records as a vertical nagaban. Two cranes preen on a pine branch weighed down with snow, their pale feathers touched with pink and blue against a gray sky.

Color woodblock print; vertical nagaban · 52.4 × 23.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago

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Art Institute of Chicago: Cranes on snow-covered pine

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Details and source

Museum title: Cranes on snow-covered pine
Artist: Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 Japanese, 1760-1849
Date: c. 1834
Medium: Color woodblock print; vertical nagaban
Dimensions: 52.4 × 23.5 cm (20 5/8 × 9 1/4 in.)
Credit line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Image license: CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record: Art Institute of Chicago

Artist’s life 1760–1849

Ukiyo-e c. 1600–1900

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.