Evening Shower at Atake and the Great Bridge

Soon after arriving in Tokyo at the end of our Nakasendo walk in 2007, Erik and I visited the Ota Memorial Museum in Omotesando to see an exhibition of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. I was still pretty exhausted from our journey, and wasn't really in the mood for visiting art museums. However, I was so captivated by this print by Hiroshige from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo that I found myself going back to look at it several times.

For me, much of the appeal of ukiyo-e is romantic and relates to the way they depict scenes that no longer exist and capture the mood of a bygone age. But this print appealed to me for a different reason. When I first saw it it struck me as extremely modern. I decided this was largely due to the framing of the scene and the unusual angles of the bridge and the horizon. But I also love the colours, the representation of the rain, and the way the grey and black of the sky give a sense of an impending downpour.

Much has been written about the impact ukiyo-e had on European Impressionist painters in the latter half of the 19th century when Japanese prints began to flood into Europe (legend has it that they first found their way into that part of the world in the form of wrapping on ceramics and other goods, such was their lowly status in Japan at the time). One of these painters was Van Gogh. So impressed was he with the prints of Hiroshige and the other ukiyo-e artists that he copied some of them. You can see Van Gogh's version of Evening Shower at Atake and the Great Bridge here.

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 79.9km
Days left until departure: 63