Shōno: Driving Rain

A sudden shower — hakuu, "white rain" — lashes the hillside at Shōno: palanquin bearers scramble up the slope as villagers dash down it, and the bamboo grove behind bends into gray silhouette. With Kambara’s snow, one of the two undisputed masterpieces of the series — a print in which weather itself, not the station, is the subject, and every figure is caught mid-stride inside it. The rain is carved as sheets of fine parallel lines slanting across the entire image; the grove behind is printed in two flat tones of gray with no outline, a storm within the storm. The road gives no shelter. The travelers run anyway.

Maker

Utagawa Hiroshige

Date

c. 1833–34

Medium of the original

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper

Rights

Cleared for print

Catalogue number

PA-00389