Night Rain
- Date:
- 1940s printing of earlier design
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Publisher:
- Watanabe Shozaburo
$1,500–$10,000. Snow and night scenes tend to command premium prices for this artist. Key value factors: Settai's literary elegance and refined technique have a niche but devoted following among collectors of Japanese aestheticism.
Rain falls through darkness in this oban color woodblock print, its vertical lines of precipitation slicing through the composition with graphic force. Komura Settai renders the night rain as both natural phenomenon and design element, the parallel lines of falling water creating a visual rhythm across the print surface. The subject has a long pedigree in Japanese printmaking, from Hiroshige's famous rain scenes to Kawase Hasui's modern nocturnes. Settai's version strips the scene to its essentials, emphasizing the abstract pattern of rain against dark sky. The color woodblock process allowed the printer to build layers of translucent dark tones, creating depth within the darkness rather than a uniform black.
Woodblock print
Teradomari no yau
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Night Rain was created by Komura Settai (小村雪岱) in 1940s printing of earlier design.
Night Rain was published by Watanabe Shozaburo (1940s printing of earlier design).
Night Rain depicts night scenes and rain.
