Cleveland Museum of Art

Night Rain at the Azuma Shrine (from the series Eight Views of the Environs of Edo)

Utagawa HiroshigeLinkedCulture matchlcp-058622c2ea8f

Date: mid-1830s
Medium: color woodblock print
Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Department: Japanese Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 121618

Here Hiroshige reinterprets the traditional Chinese poetic and artistic theme of Eight Views of Xiaoxiang , a scenic region in southeast China . Inspired by “rain at night on the Xiaoxiang,” Hiroshige instead places travelers near Azuma Jinja Shrine in an Edo (present-day Tokyo) suburb. Synthetic blue pigment, imported from the West and wildly popular in the early 1800s, adds vibrancy to the muted landscape. Thin, ruler-straight diagonal lines of white ink evoke the driving rain.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Mrs. Henry S. Upson
Provenance: ?–1942: Mrs. Henry S. [Mary Louisa Southworth] Upson [1859–1944], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1942–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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