Silent Snow: Japan, Monet, and the Nordic Countries [Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum: Swedish Painting, Nordic Light]

First snow in Tokyo!

February 8, 2025. It fell with considerable force, and since it was quite powdery, it was a beautiful snowfall for Tokyo. There were times when it turned into a blizzard, and the fact that it happened on the day of the House of Representatives election made for a dramatic scene, but overall, I think it was a gentle, quiet snowfall.

When it comes to paintings of snow in Japan, the first thing that comes to mind is Maruyama Okyo. A subtractive approach to snow that utilizes the original white background of the folding screen. It is a deeply refined snow, born from the reversal of thinking inherent in the Eastern culture of negative space. Among the works I have seen recently, Higashiyama Kaii's "Year's End" is also a wonderful snow painting that depicts the warmth of life falling within the snow. The snow in Kawase Hasui's shin-hanga prints also comes to mind as Japanese snow that is appreciated all over the world.

Japanese snow, which is also expressed culturally and internally as shown by the onomatopoeia "shin-shin" (the sound of falling snow), is said to create a sense of tranquility, yet its expression is rhythmic, showcasing the artist's skill. On the other hand, the snow depicted by Nordic artists from countries like Sweden and Norway shows a different side than such Japanese snowy landscapes.

◯ Anders Zorn

First, from the "Swedish Painting: Nordic Light, Brilliance of Daily Life" exhibition currently being held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, we have Anders Zorn. Like this work depicting Liljefors, who is also an exhibiting artist in this exhibition, Nordic snow often has a generous sense of volume. It is not the way grains fall like in Japan, but a presence that is there in a lump. It even looks a bit sticky.

◯ Edvard Munch

When thinking about snow different from that of Japan and Tokyo, although it is not a Swedish painting, this is a painting I absolutely wanted to include! This is Edvard Munch's "Winter in the Fjord," which was exhibited at the 2024 SOMPO Museum of Art's "Nordic Mystery Exhibition." This muddy texture. In Tokyo, snow contains a lot of water, so you don't see this kind of texture. Snow that writhes like lava erupting from the Earth's core.

Munch's famous "The Scream" is characterized by the expression of ominous air stagnation like Jupiter, but this work could be called a snow version of Munch's unique expression. I had never felt such power in snow before!

◯ Carl Fredrik Hill

Next, again from the Swedish Painting exhibition, is Carl Fredrik Hill's "Landscape with Carriage in Wasteland." Snow and sky are boldly depicted with rough brushstrokes. This work is the type that surprises you more with the vastness captured on the canvas than with its sense of mass. This can also be said to be unique to Sweden, where overwhelming nature is close by. It is factual snow as opposed to literary or poetic snow. The tiny crescent moon drawn in the left corner and the eerie carriage also accentuate this.

◯ Gustaf Fjaestad

And the ultimate example is this voluminous snowy landscape! In Gustaf Fjaestad's "Winter Moonlight," the rhythmic pointillism that reflects the moonlight within the thickly painted snow is impressive. While it is a muddy, pulsating snow that connects to Munch's work, it makes you feel a different temperature. It is an overwhelming natural landscape that is hard to see in Tokyo.

Tokyo snow, in particular, has a high water content and is slushy, but it is said that Nordic snow is dry and fluffy. And because Nordic snow crystals are smaller, it becomes a dense, fine-grained mass. Fjaestad succeeded perfectly in depicting that snow on the canvas, and it even makes you think it looks warm.

◯ Silent Snow

And the same Fjaestad's "Snowy Riverside at Dusk." As the caption suggests, it is not just realistic, but a work that depicts rhythmically abstracted water ripples. However, if you follow the flow of the ripples, that pattern is abruptly ended by the snow. Depending on how you look at it, it appears as if a horizontal, scroll-like canvas is set within the frame by another wall of snow. In other words, this can be taken to mean that snow is clearly depicted as a superior existence that the flow and rhythm of water can never interfere with. Not only does it show how overwhelming snow is for Swedes, but perhaps Fjaestad wanted to express the silence of snow.

The Japanese snow scenes I mentioned at the beginning often deal with snow in silence, but you can see that it is different from a state of absolute silence. Footsteps, animal cries, the sound of snow dripping from trees, you might even feel sound in the moonlight, and you can reflect your own breath. Because it is quiet, poetic, and internal snow, there is negative space, and there are countless spaces where sound can echo.

Although silence also includes the meaning of no noise in terms of the word's definition, there is no image of erasing sound to the point of air friction. In contrast, when you look at the snow with the overwhelming volume of Fjaestad, there is an intensity that swallows all sound and fills the canvas with nothing but snow. There is no negative space; conversely, it is all white, and it still looks cold after all. Even though it is white, for some reason I also feel the blackness of nothingness. Fjaestad may have pursued that silent snow to the end.

◯ Impressionist Snow

With that in mind, I have looked at the differences between the poetic snow of Japan and the factual snow of the Nordic countries, but there is another special snow painting that can be seen in Tokyo right now.

Claude Monet's 'The Magpie.' It is a snow painting that draws out the light reflected in the snow to the maximum, which is different from the snow as particles in Japan or the snow as masses in the Nordic countries. Monet's stance of not painting white as white is truly characteristic of Impressionism.

At the Monet exhibition at the Artizon Museum, you can see several snow and ice paintings by Monet, as well as snow scenes by Sisley and Renoir. It might be fun to compare various snow scenes while it gets colder and colder in Tokyo.

The End

The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum's 'Swedish Painting: Nordic Light, the Radiance of Everyday Life' runs until April 12.
The Artizon Museum's 'Claude Monet: A Question of Landscape, 100 Years After His Death' runs until May 24.

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