How Does the Rain Get into the Picture?

Johannes W ieninger

Images of t he w eat her – or, rat her, of at mospheric phenomena – have been a cent ral t heme
of East Asian poet ry since t he Song period (960–1279). M ist , night , m oonlight and t he
melancholy gaze int o t he dist ance serve as vehicles of mood in poems t hat fuse t he seasons
and specific sit es int o iconographies of t he at mospheric. Of part icular import ance in t his
cont ext w as t he lit erary st ruct ure of t he Eight View s. This t hemat ic st ruct ure, recurring
essent ially unchanged t o t his day, has provided direct ion and guidance t o generat ions of
1
art ist s. The earliest ext ant compilat ion of t he t it les of t he Eight View s of Xiao-Xiang dat es t o
around 1090 and w as published by Shen Gua (1031–1059) in regulat ed verse:

Geese Descending t o Level Sand

Sail Ret urning from Dist ant Shore

M ount ain M arket , Clearing M ist

River and Sky, Evening Snow

Aut umn M oon over Dongt ing

Night Rain on t he Xiao-Xiang

Evening Bell from M ist -Shrouded Tem ple

Fishing Village in Evening Glow

2
All subsequent variat ions of t he Eight View s have follow ed t hese t hemes. One of t he view s
is devot ed t o t he Night Rain , an expression of ut t er melancholy, as rain is equat ed w it h t ears.
Yearning for one’s beloved, yearning for one’s far-aw ay home and t o ret urn from exile –
each of t hese w oes is so int imat ely associat ed w it h t he subject of rain t hat t hey appear t o
have obviat ed all need for an act ual depict ion of t he falling rain. All t hat is show n is t he
mood of rain and t he moment aft er.

One of t he most remarkable landscape paint ings from fift eent h-cent ury China, an
except ionally long, elegant scroll paint ing execut ed in ink, is preserved at t he M useum für
Asiat ische Kunst in Berlin. The t it le alone is promising: Spring Rain on t he Xiang River (ill. 1).
At t he end of t he scroll t he art ist Xia Chang (1388–1470) added a comment :

You, Zhongzhou, said t o me: […] ‘M ay I now have a bamboo pict ure?’ Then you
produced a roll of paper and asked me t o paint ‘Spring Rain on t he Xiang River’.
Before I knew it , anot her t wo years had gone by. This summer I had relat ively lit t le t o
do at t he office. I did not leave t he house because of t he incessant rain. So I paint ed

1 Cf. Alfreda Murck, Poetry and Painting in Song China. The Subtle Art of Dissent, Cambridge and London
2002.
2 Ibid., p. 71.
 t his pict ure for you. But I don’t know if it meet s your t ast e. I w ould be happy if you did
3
not scrut inise my clumsy w ork t oo closely.

M ore t han 14 met res long, t his handscroll is usually admired for it s beaut iful depict ion of
bamboo. What int erest s us, how ever, is t he rendering of t he t it le Spring Rain . The paint ing is
execut ed in broad loose st rokes w it h a very w et brush. One can almost feel t he sodden
meadow s and mosses. The st reams are sw ollen and form frot hy w at erfalls; t he clumps of
bamboo, bent under t he w ind and w eighed dow n w it h moist ure, st ruggle t o spring back up.
All t his is felt and depict ed w it h exquisit e sensit ivit y. But it is not raining! The paint ing
capt ures t he moment aft er a long and heavy dow npour, but not t he rain it self. The image
4
also follow s t he t radit ion of t he subject s Along t he Riverbank and W at erfall and underpins
t hese w it h t he closely observed look and feel of nat ure aft er a rainst orm, present ed in a
manner t hat is clearly legible. Working some t hree hundred years aft er t he mot if Night Rain
on t he Xiao-Xiang w as first formulat ed, Xia Chang fused several t hemes, each of t hem
charact erised by a height ened observat ion of nat ure, int o a new one. At t he same t ime, his
paint ing is also relat ed t o anot her group of subject s, namely t hat of t he Four Seasons or
Tw elve M ont hs paint ings. And, as in t he Eight View s, t here is a close link bet w een lit erat ure
and landscape paint ing. Once again real places are invest ed w it h t he met aphorical capabilit y
5
t o express human moods. Series of paint ings such as t hese can oft en be found on folding
screens – t w elve-panel screens (primarily in China) or pairs of six-panel screens (primarily in
6
Japan).

If Chinese art ist s did not act ually depict rain as such – and, in fact , not a single except ion is
know n – t hen how did it get int o Japanese paint ings? Some insight is offered by a pre-1550
paint ing by Kan ō M ot onobu (1476–1559) w hich draw s on t he Eight View s. In his Eight View s
of Xiao-Xiang in One Paint ing , M ot onobu unit ed t he eight subject s in a single landscape,
creat ing one paint ing t hat brought t oget her recognisable allusions t o each of t he eight
t radit ional at mospheric scenes. Night Rain on t he Xiao-Xiang , for example, t akes t he shape
of a passage of diagonal hat ching in t he t op right corner of t he composit ion above t he mist-
shrouded landscape (ill. 2). This ingenious synt hesis of a t radit ionally mult ipart Chinese
genre not only gave rise t o a new format of landscape paint ing, but also t o new visual
element s t o convey mood.

In t he sevent eent h cent ury book publishing emerged as a commercial ent erprise in Japan.
Expanding rapidly, it w as charact erised by w oodblock print ing and t he fusion of t ext and

3 Wang Ching-Ling, ‘Ein elegantes Geschenk. Die Querrolle Frühlingsregen am Xiang-Fluss von Xia Chang im
Museum für Asiatische Kunst Berlin’, Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, new series 12 (2012), no. 24, pp. 11–26, here p.
24.
4 Maxwell K. Hearn, Wen C. Fong, Along the Riverbank. Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family
Collection, New York 1999.
5 Melinda Takeuchi, Taiga’s True Views. The Language of Landscape Painting in Eighteenth-Century Japan,
Stanford 1992, pp. 52, 103.
6 Cf. Chino Kaori, ‘The Emergence and Development of Famous Place Painting as a Genre’, Review of

Japanese Culture and Society (2003), vol. 15: Japanese Art. The Scholarship and Legacy of Chino Kaori, pp.
39–61, here p. 47.
image. The int ellect ual ink paint ing of t he Kanō School (est ablished in t he fift eent h cent ury),
7

w hich drew on t he Chinese t radit ion of lit erat i paint ing by scholar-bureaucrat s, had t o be
simplified t o be reproduced in t he linear t echnique of t he w oodcut . Court ly subject s ent ered
t he realm of popular cult ure, and so did t he illust rat ions t hat t radit ionally accompanied
t hem. Richly illust rat ed classics of Japanese lit erat ure gradually supplant ed Chinese
iconographic convent ions t o give rise t o an aut onomous Japanese st yle of illust rat ion.

Illust rat ed by t he ot herw ise unknow n art ist Nakamura Eisen, an edit ion of t he Hundred
Poems published in 1692 feat ures highly st ylised depict ions of rain in several illust rat ions –
usually in t he form of lines of diagonal hat ching in t he empt y upper part of t he composit ion.
These lines rarely encroach upon t he landscapes beneat h t hem and t hus do not lend much
dept h t o t he composit ion (ill. 3).

The rise of ukiyo-e (pict ures of t he float ing w orld) in t he lat e sevent eent h cent ury, w hen
w oodblock print s came t o be seen as w orks of art in t heir ow n right rat her t han just
illust rat ions, unleashed a verit able flood of images upon t he major cit ies in Japan. In addit ion
t o t radit ional st ories, new , m ore t opical subject s emerged t hat drew on t he w orld of t heat re
and ent ert ainment . St ars of t he kabuki t heat re w ere linked w it h hist oric figures and t hemes.

Torii Kiyonobu I (1664–1729), one of t he first members of t he Torii School w hich w as closely
associat ed w it h t he t heat re and specialised in paint ing post ers, signboards and promot ional
mat erial for t he popular kabuki t heat res, produced port rait -like images of act ors in t heir
signat ure roles (ill. 4). M ade in 1718 and st ill hand-coloured rat her t han colour-print ed, his
w oodcut Sanjō Kantarō II as Yaoya Oshichi and Ichimura Takenojō II as Koshô Kichisabur ō
not only show s t he t w o act ors, but also a garden lily, a corner of a hut and an elegant
umbrella. This should have been quit e enough t o ident ify t he figures and t he scene – it w as,
aft er all, a scene from a w ell-know n st age play – but t he art ist also included parallel hat ched
lines t o suggest rain, w hich, like t he rest of t he w oodcut , w ere lat er coloured in red and
yellow . The rhyt hmic pat t ern of t hese evenly spaced lines fills t he upper part of t he
composit ion w it hout act ually becoming part of t he scene depict ed below .

In 1712, a few years before t his w oodcut w as produced, one of Japan’s most im port ant
encyclopaedias w as published. Consist ing of 106 chapt ers in 81 volumes, t he W akan Sansai
(Illust rat ed Sino-Japanese Encyclopaedia) w as t he first illust rat ed encyclopaedia t o be
published in Japan. In form and cont ent it draw s on t he Chinese Sancai Tuhui (Pict orial
8
Compendium of t he Three Realms) of 1609. But t he W akan Sansai is no mere copy of t he
Chinese original. Alt hough much w as adopt ed from it , t here is also a great deal of mat erial
t hat is surprisingly different and new – w e might call it t ypically Japanese. The people list ed

7 Cf. Ekkehard May, ‘Buch und Buchillustration im vorindustriellen Japan’, in: Sepp Linhart, Susanne
Formanek (eds.), Buch und Bild als gesellschaftliche Kommunikationsmittel in Japan einst und jetzt, Vienna
1995, p. 45–74, here p. 47.
8 On the history of East Asian encyclopaedias, cf. Marc Winter, ‘Enzyklopädien im chinesischen Kulturraum –
die „leishu“. Gigantismus und materiell manifestierter Machtanspruch in der chinesischen Tradition’, Paul
Michel, Madeleine Herren, Martin Rüesch (eds.), Allgemeinwissen und Gesellschaft. Akten des Internationalen
Kongresses über Wissenstransfer und Enzyklopädische Ordnungssysteme, Aachen 2007, pp. 145–183, on the
Sancai Tuhui pp. 169–171.
w ere w ell-know n in Japan; everyday it ems reflect Japanese cust oms of t he t ime, as do
clot hing and archit ect ure. The chapt er on t he human body and anat omy, on t he ot her hand,
reveals European influence. The first t hree volum es deal w it h t he heavens. The sun and t he
moon are described in t he first – as crow and hare, as w as t he cust om in t he Sino-Japanese
t radit ion, but also by means of ast ronom ical sket ches, as t hey w ere know n from t he w est ern
lit erat ure of t he sixt eent h and sevent eent h cent ury. The second volume deals w it h t he
const ellat ions and t he t hird w it h met eorological phenomena, neit her of w hich feat ures in
t he Chinese Sancai Tuhui . The follow ing subject s are t reat ed in great er det ail: fog, hoarfrost ,
dew , graupel, hail, snow , rain, w ind, m ist , sky, clouds, rainbow , comet s, shoot ing st ars. Each
of t hese met eorological and ast ronom ical phenomena is accompanied by a small illust rat ion
t hat present s it as part of a narrat ive landscape scene. What is st riking about t hese
illust rat ions is t hat very few of t hem follow the t radit ional Japanese iconography. Thus
t hunder is represent ed by t he w eat her god Raijin furiously beat ing his drums. His part ner,
t he w ind, how ever, is not represent ed as t he w ind god Fūjin w it h his inflat ed w indbag, but as
a w indsw ept w illow t ree. The depict ion of clouds in East Asia is governed by a rich and w ell-
est ablished iconography, yet t he illust rat ion of t he ent ry on clouds feat ures only t w o kinds:
t he t radit ional t ype, w hich resembles a hui mushroom, and, above, small square format ions
t hat can be ident ified as cirrocum ulus cloudlet s despit e t heir ext reme schemat isat ion. The
upper t hird of t he illust rat ion accompanying t he ent ry on rain (ill. 5) is filled w it h dot s
suggest ing clouds, t he low er w it h t he roof of a house and bamboo bending under t he w ind.
Rain burst s from t he clouds in t he form of diagonal lines of hat ching.

These examples suffice t o suggest t hat t he illust rat or looked not only t o t he canon of
t radit ional sources, but also furt her afield. The follow ing excerpt s of t he ent ry are not able
9
for t heir scholarly scient ific approach. The ent ry begins w it h an exposit ion on t he different
spellings and pronunciat ions – Sino-Japanese u , Chinese iyui and Japanese ame – follow ed by
a list of t he different t ypes of rain:

Light rain, st rong rain, cont inuous rain (for more t han t hree days) and t he clearing up
or end of rain, clear w eat her. Evaporat ing w at er forms clouds and comes back down
as rain. The ‘Shiming’ [a Chinese encyclopaedia compiled around 200 CE] says: ‘Rain is
like t he w ing of a bird w hich spreads in flight .’ […] Rain mixed w it h snow [sleet ] is
referred t o as ‘snow -rain’, rain dripping from t he roof as ‘drop-rain’ and t he draining
rainw at er as ‘rain-rivulet ’. The ‘Ant en monjo’ [apparent ly an ot herw ise unknow n
encyclopaedia] says: ‘It is raining w hen t he sun essence above t he clouds and t he
w at er essence below t hem separat e. The essences of t he cold and of t he humidit y are
locat ed at the heart of t he clouds. W hen t hey are turned over, t hey dissolve and it
rains. W hen w at er is heat ed, for example in cooking, it rises and becomes st eam
w hich has t he look of a cloud. In rising, it dries (and cools dow n), t urns int o w at er,
comes down and t akes t he shape of rain.’ The ‘ Shinreikyō’ [an otherwise unknown
sut ra] says: ‘Above t he four oceans t here is a man w ho is riding sw ans. [He is w earing]
w hit e clot hing and a dark headdress. Tw elve boys are follow ing him. They are riding
horses as t hough t hey w ere flying. He is called t he messenger of t he River Prince. He
comes from a land in w hich t he rain comes pouring dow n in sheet s.’

9 I am grateful to Mine und Bernhard Scheid for the translation into German.
The follow ing pages deal w it h furt her special t ypes of rain: rain show ers, t he rainy season,
lat e aut umn rain and uncanny rain. They are follow ed by t he ent ry on rain prayers (amagoi ).
The comm ingling of myt hological explanat ions for t he phenomenon of rain w it h at t empt s at
physical explanat ions is remarkable for t he period, as is t he commingling of different
iconographies. The illust rat or used ancient Japanese symbolic images as w ell as images of
comet s or rainbow s t hat seem t o originat e in an ent irely different t radit ion. In his st udy The
Art of t he Japanese Book Jack Hillier speculat ed t hat European print s may have served as
10
models for early Japanese book illust rat ions. But hardly anyone dares pursue t his idea
furt her, how ever t ant alising it may be. Suffice it here t o ment ion just one more t hing:
European – above all German – popular print s dealing w it h ext raordinary st orms,
11
inexplicable nat ural event s and at mospheric or celest ial phenomena are oft en illust rat ed in
a similarly gauche fashion as t he W akan Sansai Zue.

What ever t his may mean for t he hist ory of t he depict ion of rain in Japanese print s, t he
hat ched lines became a st andard pict orial device t hat could be deployed in a variet y of w ays.
Three examples from t he second half of t he eight eent h cent ury demonst rat e t he creat ivit y
of t he ukiyo-e art ist s in t he t reat ment of rain.

Even t hough Ishikaw a Toyonobu’s colour w oodcut of 1750–1760 is called Tw o Beaut ies and
an At t endant (ill. 6), t his image is really a development of t he sampuku-t sui , a t ript ych of
print s or kakemono (hanging scrolls) show ing young beaut ies. Ishikaw a Toyonobu (1711–
1785) evident ly loved t he format , but in t his print he fused it int o a single image. Three
figures are show n leaning int o t he driving rain draw n in emphat ic diagonal hat ched lines.
Their robes are billow ing and an umbrella is held up against t he blust ery w ind. The w eat her
is clearly t he main subject of t he print . The diagonal hat ch lines only make sense in
12
combinat ion w it h t he w ind. The rain begins t o t ake cent re st age.

One has t o look closely at t he print Praying for Rain (Amagoi ) from t he series Fashionable
Seven Komachi by Shiba Kokan (1747–1818) t o recognise t he celebrat ed poet ess Ono no
13
Komachi (ill. 7). A beaut y, t he cent ral figure of t he composit ion, is helped w it h her t oilet by
her at t endant s w hile she is cont emplat ing a w oodcut show ing Ono no Komachi at t he gat e
of a shrine. The veranda door is slid open, and t he gaze is direct ed int o t he dist ance across
t he roofs t o a dist ant rain show er, w hich is rendered in a w ay t hat is st rikingly sim ilar t o t hat
of t he illust rat ion in t he W akan Sansai Zue. Thus t he rainy landscape is just a reference t o
t he t it le w hich only becomes comprehensible w hen w e look at t he pict ure w it hin t he pict ure
and t he t ext above t he image. Such mit at e-e (‘look and com pare pict ures’), w hich played
w it h mult iple layers of symbolism and allusion, w ere a popular genre of ukiyo-e. Here t he
view becomes a pict ure w it hin t he pict ure, opening a second layer of meaning.

10 Jack Ronald Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, vol. 1, London 1987, p. 64.
11 Cf. Wilhelm Hess, Himmels- und Naturerscheinungen in Einblattdrucken des XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhunderts,
Leipzig 1911; Bruno Weber (ed.), Wunderzeichen und Winkeldrucker. 1543–1586. Einblattdrucke aus der
Sammlung Wickiana in der Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Dietikon (Zurich) 1972; Axel Janeck, Zeichen am Himmel.
Flugblätter des 16. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, Nuremberg 1982.
12 It is intriguing to compare this print with Katsushika Hokusai’s woodcut Ejiri in Suruga Province from the
series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, in which the wind surprises a group of travellers.
13 On Ono no Komachi, see Bernhard Scheid, pp. ###–###.
Kit agaw a Ut amaro (1753–1806) w as w ell-know n for forging his ow n art ist ic pat h t hrough t he
float ing w orld. He int roduced new subject s, offered cust omers a glim pse behind t he scenes
of t he Edo-period pleasure quart ers and ent ert ainment dist rict s and pioneered novel
t echniques and new w ays of looking. Like many of his cont emporaries, he w as int erest ed in
t hree-dimensionalit y, but also in light and shadow , day and night , i.e., in t he at mospheric
pulse of t he day. Describing his colour w oodcut Husband and W ife in an Evening Show er (ill.
8), several review ers w onder at t he apparent inconsist ency of t he closed umbrella in t he
pouring rain. They also crit icise t he depict ion of t he rain as a mere t w o-dimensional
14
background t o t he t w o figures. The print invit es t w o int erpret at ions: It can be read as a
reference t o t he night rain of t he t radit ional Eight View s, but also as a t ake on t he t radit ion
of t he ‘umbrella pict ure’. An evident ly drenched couple in part ly dishevelled clot hing – a
semi-erot ic allusion – st eps out of t he rain. They appear t o have arrived at t heir dest inat ion;
shelt ered from t he w et , t hey are show n under t he roof of a front door. In cont rast t o Shiba
Kokan’s print , in w hich t he rain funct ions merely as a symbolic allusion, here t he st ylised
dow npour acquires landscape charact er. It becom es a key part of a sequence of event s and
anchors t hem in t ime and space.

Every bit as experiment al as Ut amaro w as t he eccent ric Kat sushika Hokusai (1760–1849)
w hose long career saw him adopt and shape many art ist ic t rends. His pict ure book One
15
Hundred View s of M ount Fuji – published in t hree volumes over a period of about fift een
years from t he m id 1830s t o t he lat e 1840s – cont ains several landscapes of near-
impressionist resolut ion. He succeeded in capt uring t he mood of a cert ain t ime of day or
season and t he feel of t he landscape. Among his pit hiest composit ions is t he print Fuji in a
Dow npour (ill. 9). Peasant s in raingear and large hat s cow er under t he rain. The w ay t he
figures are draw n suggest s t hat t he pat h leads deep int o t he landscape w hich, in t urn, is
suggest ed by t he dense vert ical lines of t he rain alone. All t hat is recognisable is t he ghost ly
silhouet t e of t he mount ain. Eschew ing the use of cont our lines, Hokusai used t he rain t o
delineat e t he landscape and t he composit ion of t he image. The rain is not only part of t he
landscape, it is t he landscape it self. Working on his various series devot ed t o t he iconic
mount ain, Hokusai int roduced a composit ional innovat ion t hat w as t o have a profound
impact on lat er Japanese and West ern art and t hat is also present in Fuji in a Dow npour . By
posit ioning t he rain in front of t he landscape, like a t ransparent film or screen, he creat ed a
kind of layered space t hat t ransformed t he t radit ional vert ical st acking of landscape masses,
in w hich forms furt her aw ay are st acked above t hose closer t o t he view er, int o somet hing
t hat is closer t o t he recessive space of West ern perspect ive.

16
Hokusai’s key rival w as Ut agaw a Hiroshige (1797–1858). Vying w it h each ot her for fame
and sales, t he t w o art ist s creat ed ambit ious series of landscapes of a scope t hat w ent far

14 Cf. Timothy Clark, Shūgō Asano, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro, exh. cat. British Museum,
London, vol. 2, Tokyo 1995, p. 210, cat. no. 341.
15 Henry B. Smith (ed.), Hokusai. Hundert Ansichten des Berges Fuji, Munich 1988.
16 On the landscape prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige, cf. Johannes Wieninger, Andrea Pospichal, Eine
gefährliche Stelle. Berühmte Ansichten aus rund Sechzig Provinzen von Ando Hiroshige (catalogue CD), Vienna
1999; Johannes Wieninger, Fuji – der Berg, den es nur einmal gibt. With a contribution by Josef Kreiner
(catalogue CD), Vienna 2001; Johannes Wieninger, ‘Die Welle von Katsushika Hokusai – ihre Stellung in der
beyond t hat of t he t radit ional Eight View s or Tw elve M ont hs. So it is not surprising t hat t he
period bet w een 1820 and 1860 is w idely regarded as t he zenit h of ukiyo-e landscape
imagery. By t he lat e sevent eent h cent ury t he Chinese format of t he Eight View s – originally
set on t he Xiao and Xiang rivers w here t hey empt y int o Lake Dongt ing in Hunan Province –
had come to be applied to the area around Lake Biwa in Ōmi Province northeast of Kyoto,
and t he ancient sacred pine t ree near Karasaki on t he shore of t he lake became a cent ral
mot if of several series of print s. In Hiroshige’s Night Rain at Karasaki (ill. 10) t he rain falls in
fine vert ical lines as night descends upon t he landscape, t urning everyt hing t o shades of grey.
The curt ain of heavy rain forms a barrier bet w een t he view er and t he silhouet t ed scene.

In his Ochanomizu in t he Rain (ill. 11) Ut agaw a Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) arrived at a sim ilar
concept ion. The view er is st anding on a bridge, looking along t he river t ow ards Fuji. The vist a
w as a celebrat ed view of M ount Fuji, capt ured in numerous w oodcut s. Kuniyoshi goes
furt her t han Hiroshige in dissolving t he landscape int o monochrome volumes; his drenching,
st eady rain falls in even more closely spaced vert ical lines t hat seem t o have been draw n
w it h a ruler.

At t his point , one should draw a direct formal com parison w it h t he kat agami , w hich are,
aft er all, t he cent ral subject of t his publicat ion. St ripe pat t erns and images – t he boundaries
are blurred – represent a parallel development in w oodblock print ing and kat agami
pat t erning w hich became possible because of t he early realisat ion t hat rain could only ever
be depict ed by focusing on it s ornament al and rhyt hmic qualit ies.

Ut agaw a Hiroshige’s Cuckoo Flying in t he Rain , a colour w oodcut of c. 1831 in t he slim

vert ical t anzaku (poem card) format , is not able for it s highly ornament al composit ion w hich
is ent irely det ermined by t he dynam ic diagonals of t he rain. The cuckoo, t he rain, t he lines of
t he poem and t he landscape suggest ed in t he low er part of t he composit ion all follow t he
same emphat ic diagonal in t heir headlong dash from t he upper right t o t he low er left – t he
st andard reading direct ion of East Asian pict ures. Once again, w e find t he requisit e
resonances of t he subject of t he night rain, w hile t he call of t he cuckoo heralds t he coming
of summer. This mot if, w hich also enjoyed great popularit y as a t ext ile ornament (t radit ional
kimono pat t erns and colours are closely linked t o t he rhyt hm of t he seasons), bears w it ness
t o t he shared art ist ic aspirat ions of applied art and ukiyo-e.

The deat h of Hokusai in 1849 released Hiroshige from t he pressure t o compet e w it h his
archrival. Over t he course of t he follow ing years he produced some of t he m ost ext ensive
series of landscapes in t he hist ory of ukiyo-e. His use of a w est ernised perspect ive allow ed
him t o develop novel composit ions w it h a specific layering of planes t hat very oft en involved
a large det ail in t he foreground, cont rast ing w it h t he deep view of t he landscape and
reinforcing t he effect of t he perspect ive.

The com posit ion of Hiroshige’s Dist ant View of M ount Oyama from Ono in Hoki Province (ill.
13), a print show ing rice farmers at w ork, is fairly conservat ive, but it is t echnically

Kunstgeschichte Ostasiens und ihr Einfluss auf die Kunst Europas’, Hans-Günther Schwarz (ed.), Die Welle.
Das Symposium (= Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Deutsch als Fremdsprachenphilologie, volume X), Munich
2010, pp. 171–180; Brigitte Moser, Beate Murr, Johannes Wieninger, Ukiyo-e reloaded. Die Sammlung
japanischer Farbholzschnitte im MAK-Wien (catalogue DVD), landscape chapter, Vienna/Ostfildern 2005.
int erest ing for it s unusual depict ion of rain. Print ed in w hit e lines, it is falling st eadily but
gent ly, not adding unduly t o t he burden of t he w et w ork in t he rice paddies. This subject had
been est ablished in a w aka (a short poem composed in Japanese) by Ki no Tsurayuki (872–
945) w hich served as an inspirat ion for April in several series of print s devot ed t o view s of
17
M ount Fuji over t he course of t he t w elve mont hs of t he year.

Hiroshige’s view of Yamabushi Valley (ill.14), w hich can be read as an answ er t o Hokusai’s
Ejiri in Suruga Province from t he series Thirt y-six View s of M ount Fuji , capt ures a rat her more
blust ery scene. A gust of w ind surprises t w o figures t ravelling along a river. Not only t he
t rees bend under t he force of t he w ind, even t he heavy rain it self, falling from black clouds,
is w hipped up. The force of t he violent rainst orm is suggest ed by a flurry of sw eeping
diagonals laid across t he print , t heir light colour reflect ing t he colour of t he paper. Barring
t he view er from ent ering t he pict orial space, t his screen-like curt ain of driving rain becomes
t he main subject of t he image.

Sudden Show er over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake (ill. 15) from t he series One Hundred
Famous View s of Edo is one of Hiroshige’s last colour w oodcut s and arguably one of t he
best -know n Japanese print s. Travellers crossing a bridge in t he rain is a subject w it h a long
t radit ion (cf. ill. 5); it w as probably int ended t o em phasise man’s pow erlessness in t he face
of t he force of nat ure. Neit her end of t he bridge is visible; w hat makes t his print so
fascinat ing is t he fan-like division of t he image int o t hree planes, one above t he ot her, in
manner t hat is comparable t o t he t radit ional st acked space of East Asian landscape paint ing.
The scene is pummelled by a heavy rain, but it differs markedly from t he rain pict ures
published in t he art ist ’s Famous View s of t he Sixt y-odd Provinces. Here t he rain is depict ed in
t hin black and grey lines of uneven lengt h. Running at different angles rat her t han neat ly
parallel, t hey creat e t he im pression of rain falling in t he pict ure and not just in front of it . The
depict ion of t he rain runs count er t o t he t radit ional depict ion of space and fuses t he t hree
planes int o a single coherent com posit ion.

Hiroshige died just t en years before t he collapse of the shōgunate, w hich gave rise t o t he
great est polit ical and social t ransformat ion in t he hist ory of Japan. The t hree lat e rain
pict ures exemplify an end-point in t he development of Japanese landscape paint ing of t he
Tokugawa shōgunate (1603–1867). Rain w as never really a cent ral t heme of Japanese
landscapes, but it w as alw ays present . And, as oft en in t he hist ory of art , such marginal,
secondary subject s lend t hemselves more readily t o t he st udy of how a t heme developed
t han a major one w it h a w ell-know n iconography. The progression from symbolic allusions t o
rain t o t he graphic composit ions of Hokusai and Hiroshige occurred over many cent uries. In
t hat t ime, t he subject of rain evolved int o a t ruly Japanese t heme t hat inspired generat ions
of art ist s t o ever new int erpret at ions. Caut ious at t empt s t o find formally based answ ers t o
t he quest ion How does t he rain get int o t he pict ure? must not blind us t o t he simple fact t hat
Japan’s relat ively high annual rainfall w as – and is – a mixed blessing, and t hat t he everyday
t ravails t hat come w it h it w ere a nat ural subject for t he art ist s w ho sought t o capt ure t he
float ing w orld of Edo-period Japan in popular print s.

17 Takeuchi 1994 (see note 5), p. 103.