Two Cranes on a Snow-covered Pine Tree

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

Although Hokusai did not include a series title, this oversize print belongs to a set of five images representing creatures with long-standing symbolic associations: cranes and pines, longevity; carp, social ambition; hawks, focused endeavor; tortoises, longevity; horses, fecundity. All the prints except the one with horses were typical of New Year’s decoration. They would have been mounted as hanging scrolls for display in the tokonoma , or alcove, in Japanese homes. Capitalizing on the vertical format, Hokusai depicted two red-crested cranes with their long legs and graceful necks. In contrast to the carefully delineated birds, the snow-covered pine branch is defined by impressionistic dots and dabs, as if rendered with a brush, supporting the contention that the prints in this series were meant to be mounted as hanging scrolls to mimic paintings. Asia