Do you know the secret of Immortality? Probably not, especially if you missed one of the most beautiful exhibitions of the year 2020. All you have to do is read this article to soak up the beauty of Japanese prints that date from the Edo period (period from 1603 to the middle of the 19th century) to the present day. 70 prints, chosen from a rich background of 11,000 pieces, stored in the reserves of the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts, represent Mount Fuji, classified in 2013 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The volcano has been a sacred mountain since the 7th century. At 3,376 meters high, its snow-capped summit keeps the elixir of immortality. 
The exhibition, which stops time
The name of the exhibition is a reference to the title of the novel by KAWABATA Yasunari (1899-1972), Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. He writes "Here (…), it was the constant parade of the same mountain landscape, completely extinct (…) and deprived of any color. Yasunari KAWABATA, Land of Snow "Translating snow is difficult, but it will be one of the great successes of printmaking, from the Edo period to the present day (…). These prints are all sentimental images. The works leave us with a feeling of strong melancholy and are doubtless, (…) Among the most striking images of the transience and fragility of snow, like the feeling of love. " explains Sophie Makariou President of the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet 
The representation of snow in Japanese prints
In Japan, one of the greatest achievements of landscape printing is the translation of snow. Reigning over the composition, she often rejects the main "subject" in the margins. The process will also be taken up by the impressionist painters, great connoisseurs of printmaking, and in the first place by Claude Monet. On Japanese prints most often the snow does not sparkle, it absorbs noises, it sleeps the landscape. 
Artists, such as UTAGAWA Hiroshige (1797-1858), left the white of the paper intact, "in reserve". Sometimes they enhance the white with mica glitter and emboss selected areas with an uninked board, adding to the refinement of a minimalist treatment. Champions of white on white, the great masters of printmaking invented formal processes of great modernity, making, from generation to generation, quotations from previous masters. So it is interesting to consider Hiroshige in the eye of Kiyochika, and Kiyochika in the eye of Hasui. 
The fusion of Japanese printmaking and watercolor
The evolution of technique and the obsession of Japanese painters to depict snow had a decisive impact on Art. Japanese artists revolutionized painting irreversibly. By dint of printing, such a painter manages to create new shades. By combining techniques (relief, hollow, reserve), the artist brings texture, nuance, erasure of colors, even suffocation The snow is adorned with a bluffing realism in KOBAYASHI Kiyochika (1847-1915) or in UTAGAWA Hiroshige (1797-1858). The compositions accentuate the contrasts between the stillness of the landscapes and the movement, as illustrated so well by UTAGAWA Hiroshige's The Fields of Susaki in Fukagawa, where we see an eagle spreading its wings over the entire upper part of the work, it seems to plunge towards the wide silent expanses. Often the majesty of the Fuji volcano faces the smallness of characters in the foreground. The hostility of the cold stands against the effort of the workers. The stripping of the scenes, the progressive stylization of the volcano bring out a universal timeless emotion. The print is close to watercolor, the contours fade. 
