Cleveland Museum of Art

Driving Rain at Shōno, from Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaidō

Utagawa Hiroshige

Date

1833

Medium

color woodblock print

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Utagawa Hiroshige’s design for this print captures the atmospheric qualities of rain and its effects on two groups of travelers. Three printing blocks were required to produce the three shades of gray used to suggest distance in the thickets of bamboo in the background. The publisher’s name, “Takenouchi,” and part of the series title, Fifty-Three Stations , are written on one person’s umbrella. Hiroshige created many different print series on the Tokaidō, a road that ran from Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo). Shōno was a minor way station along this largely coastal route. A large red seal with the publisher’s name, Takenouchi, is stamped on the left side of the print.

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