On a single white sheet, the kanji for "snow" — yuki — printed in black, is repeated exactly 1,352 times in a symmetrical grid formation. A 1970 work by Niikuni Seiichi, "flowery snow" (1970) is at once calligraphy, poem and picture. In the Chinese literati tradition — which was influential on Edo Period artists in Japan — having the ability to create these meant one had attained the "three perfections" of the educated classes.
In Seiichi's work, however, the calligraphy is mechanically printed and the composition is hard regularity. The poetry, pointedly, is frozen out: It emerges, almost imperceptibly, at dead center in the form of a single kanji for "flower" — hana.
The poetic reference could be to a hardy bloom such as the plum, considered one of the "three friends of winter" in East Asia (along with bamboo and pine), and suggesting gentlemanly ideals of strength and resilience in adversity; or the first bud emerging from the spring thaw, symbolizing new beginnings.