Clear weather after snow at the former Imperial Palace
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
- Image courtesy of
- Japanese Art Open Database
Description
The former Imperial Palace grounds — the site of Edo Castle, largely destroyed by fire in 1873 — provided Kiyochika with a subject that layered historical memory against Meiji-era transformation. In the aftermath of snow, the surviving stone walls, moats, and pine trees would have presented a landscape of austere clarity. Kiyochika's treatment likely emphasizes the reflective quality of snow on the moat surface contrasted against dark masonry and the skeletal forms of winter trees, deploying Western-influenced light modeling uncommon in traditional ukiyo-e depictions of imperial sites. The palace grounds were a charged subject during the Meiji period, when the emperor had relocated to Tokyo and the former castle site carried new symbolic weight.
More Prints by Kobayashi Kiyochika
More Snow Scenes Prints
Fair Weather After Snow at Yamato Bridge, Kyoto (Yamato bashi no yukibare), Taishô period, dated 1924
Woodblock print
The Compound of the Tenman Shrine at Kameido in the Snow (Kameido Tenmangu keidai no yuki), from the series "Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho)"
c. 1832/38
Color woodblock print; oban
Miyajima in Snow (Yuki no Miyajima)
Yuki no Miyajima
1929
Color woodblock print; oban
Evening Snow at Shiha Park, Tokyo
1932
Woodblock print
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear weather after snow at the former Imperial Palace was created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林清親).
Clear weather after snow at the former Imperial Palace depicts snow scenes.