Yu Tŏk-jang was of the Chinju lineage, and used the courtesy names Chagu (子久) and Chago (子固) and the sobriquet Sunun (峀雲). A great-grandson of Yadang Yu Hyŏk-yŏn (野塘 柳赫然), he served in the government posts of Ch'ŏmji Chungch'ubu-sa and Tongji Chungch'ubu-sa. His sixth-generation ancestor, the early Chosŏn civil official Yukdang Yu Chin-dong (竹堂 柳辰仝, 1497–1561), was also reputed to have excelled in the painting of bamboo; it seems likely that Yu Tŏk-jang's distinctive mastery of ink bamboo was a gift of family lineage. He was regarded as the foremost ink-bamboo painter since Yi Jŏng (李霆), and together with Sin Wi (申緯) of the late Chosŏn period is counted among the three greatest painters of ink bamboo in the entire Chosŏn dynasty.

In this painting of snow-covered bamboo, the entire picture surface is covered in dilute ink wash, with the areas bearing accumulated snow left as unpainted white paper — an approach that renders the sight of snow piled on bamboo with considerable effectiveness. The composition, in which the bamboo stems rise from the lower left of the picture surface and bend in sweeping curves, appears to have been inspired by Yi Jŏng's paintings of snow bamboo, confirming Yu Tŏk-jang's continuity with Yi Jŏng's pictorial lineage. Within this inheritance, however, Yu Tŏk-jang's ink bamboo reveals its own distinctive character: the stalks are rendered with a quality of stiffness, and the bamboo leaves are depicted as relatively full in form, wider toward the tip and painted with a sense of forceful energy.

To the right of the composition, the white-text square seal Sunun Kŏsa (峀雲居士), also found on his other ink bamboo paintings, is impressed; yet the awkward placement of the seal and the unduly rigid quality of the bamboo rendering are features that invite closer critical scrutiny.