Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Driving Rain at Shōno

  • Description

    This print, one of Hiroshige’s best-known works, depicts travellers caught in a summer rainstorm. The composition makes clever use of diagonals to emphasize the strength of the wind and driving rain, while the shading and tonal variation of the black ink in the background skilfully expresses the intensity of the storm. The print was enormously popular and was reissued countless times. Printers varied pigment colours and the degree of bokashi gradation to achieve different atmospheric effects.

  • Details

    Series
    Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road
    Associated place
    AsiaJapanHonshūKantōTōkyō prefecture Tōkyō (place of creation)
    AsiaJapanHonshūKantōTōkyō prefecture Tōkyō (place of publication)
    AsiaJapanHonshūTōkaidō road Shōno (subject)
    Date
    published 1833 - 1834
    Artist/maker
    Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797 - 1858) (designer)
    Associated people
    Hoeido (active early 18th century - late 19th century) (publisher)
    Takenouchi Magohachi (active c. 1833 - 1850) (publisher)
    Material and technique
    woodblock print, with bokashi (tonal gradation)
    Dimensions
    mount 40.7 x 55.7 cm (height x width)
    print 21.5 x 33.8 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952.
    Accession no.
    EAX.4293
  • Further reading

    Pollard, Clare, Mitsuko Ito, Landscape, Cityscape: Hiroshige Woodblock Prints in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2014), no.8, p.52, illus. p.53

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

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