Shower in late autumn — 時雨

This woodblock print captures a late autumn shower, identified by the Japanese term "shigure," which specifically describes the brief, intermittent rains that fall as autumn turns to winter. Shigure is a word laden with literary associations, appearing frequently in Japanese poetry as a symbol of transience and the passage of time. Miyamoto Shufu renders this meteorologically specific rainfall against a landscape in the final stages of autumn color, where the remaining leaves are caught between the glory of peak foliage and the bareness of approaching winter. The shower itself may be light enough to let patches of sky show through, distinguishing it from the heavy, continuous rain of the tsuyu season. The print merges meteorological observation with literary tradition, creating an image that functions simultaneously as landscape and as seasonal poetry made visible.