Natural imagery is at the very core of Japanese art and this landscape by Hokusai is testament to this. Paintings that depict a single environment’s transition into a season were a distinctive Japanese convention. Hokusai evokes winter by blanketing this tea house in a cartoon-like sheath of snow. Japanese painters sought to emphasise nature in their art works as a way to demonstrate their Buddhist beliefs. The images highlight an awareness of the inevitably of change but also their joy in the natural cycle of the seasons. 

Though seemingly innocent, the characters – diminutive in comparison to the expanse of the landscape – have lascivious intentions. During the Edo period (1603-1868) in which Hokusai worked, a «tea house» was often a place where couples retreated for privacy, or where men could procure geishas. The steaming beverage was purely incidental.