In the winter of 1890–91 Monet began his most concentrated group of paintings of a single motif — between seventeen and nineteen paintings of haystacks in the snow, depicting a dazzling range of different effects from misty morning light to spectacular sunset effects. Each painting is characterised by its different composition, different combinations of colours, and different kinds of brushstroke. Monet would have found a similar variety of effects in the twelve snow scenes in his collection of prints by Hokusai, Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi and others, as well as in his nine prints from Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.

Monet depicted the forms of escarpment and lines of trees emerging in icy morning mists. In Shichirigahama in Sagami Province, Hokusai suggested the emergence of the mountain from clouds and mist with equal sublety. Both artists represented the transforming power of natural processes, but they did so with radically different means.