Evening Snow at Sensoji Temple (Sensoji no bosetsu), from the series "Eight Fashionable View of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)"
- Date:
- c. 1776/81
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Evening Snow at Sensoji Temple by Isoda Koryusai belongs to the series Furyu Edo Hakkei, Eight Fashionable Views of Edo, in which the canonical Eight Views of Xiao and Xiang are mapped onto the topography of Edo. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the impression that documents this design, dating it to 1771. The original Chinese motif of evening snow falls on Sensoji, the great popular temple at Asakusa whose gate, pagoda, and Nakamise approach were among the most familiar urban landmarks of the city. Koryusai stages the substitution with characteristic restraint: the temple architecture is recognizable but understated, snowflakes are scattered through the upper portion of the sheet, and the figures in the foreground are dressed for the cold of late winter. The series belongs to the same broader project of cultural translation that defines much of Koryusai's mature work, and it sits beside his celebrated Hinagata Wakana Hatsu Moyo as evidence of his ability to apply the layered visual literacy of Edo bijin-ga to landscape as well as to figure. The Eight Views format gave Koryusai a chance to demonstrate his range as a designer, treating each view as a discrete pictorial problem in light, weather, and seasonal mood. For collectors of Edo landscape prints, the Sensoji plate is an unusually atmospheric early example of the genre that would later flower under Hokusai and Hiroshige.
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
20th century
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
19th century
Ukiyo-e woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Evening Snow at Sensoji Temple (Sensoji no bosetsu), from the series "Eight Fashionable View of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)" was created by Isoda Koryūsai (礒田湖龍斎) in c. 1776/81.
Evening Snow at Sensoji Temple (Sensoji no bosetsu), from the series "Eight Fashionable View of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)" depicts winter.
