Clearing after a Snowfall at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon no yukibare), from the series "Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei)"
by Kawase Hasui
by Kawase Hasui
Clearing after a Snowfall at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon no yukibare), from Kawase Hasui's Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei) of 1926, places the viewer near Sensoji, the great temple of Kannon at Asakusa, after the morning after a heavy snowfall. The complex of pagoda, gates, and surrounding shops, devastated in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and subsequently rebuilt, appears as silhouetted forms against a high, clearing sky. Hasui contrasts the bright snowy ground with deeper blues and grays above, using [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation to model the transition from cold morning sky to brighter ambient light. The print belongs to one of the most important series of Hasui's career, a sustained portrait of modern Tokyo conceived with publisher Watanabe Shozaburo in the aftermath of the earthquake, in which Watanabe's earlier inventory of Hasui's Tokyo blocks had been destroyed. Twenty Views of Tokyo was simultaneously a recovery project and a deliberate revision of the city's image, recording landmarks as they emerged from disaster. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves this impression, contextualizes the print within [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga)'s response to the catastrophe, in which Watanabe led the rebuilding of his workshop and the recommissioning of prints with surviving and reconstructed designs. By depicting Asakusa as a snow-bound urban landscape rather than a bustling pilgrimage center, Hasui aligns the temple with the broader shin-hanga theme of place rendered through weather and light, and continues the woodblock tradition of associating Sensoji with seasonal observation that runs back through Edo-period [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Clearing after a Snowfall at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon no yukibare), from the series "Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei)" was created by Kawase Hasui (川瀬巴水) in 1926.
Yes — Clearing after a Snowfall at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon no yukibare), from the series "Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei)" is part of the Twenty Views of Tokyo series by Kawase Hasui.
Clearing after a Snowfall at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon no yukibare), from the series "Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei)" uses Bokashi, on color woodblock print; oban.
Clearing after a Snowfall at the Kannon Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon no yukibare), from the series "Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei)" depicts urban scenes, landscapes, and edo & tokyo, set at Tokyo, Asakusa.
