Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake is one of the single most famous prints in all of Edo ukiyo-e, designed by Utagawa Hiroshige in 1857 as part of his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei). The Shin-Ohashi bridge crossed the Sumida River between the central city and Fukagawa, and Hiroshige depicts a moment in which a sudden summer downpour catches travelers in mid-crossing. The diagonal silhouettes of figures hunched under straw mats and umbrellas march across the bridge, while a single boatman poles his craft beneath in the river below. Above and through the scene, fine lines of rain printed in two different angles slash across the composition, an effect achieved through technically demanding overprinting and careful registration of the woodblocks. The far bank of the river, the village of Atake, is reduced to a band of muted gray and indigo, dissolved into the storm. This landscape print became internationally celebrated after Vincent van Gogh made a closely studied oil painting after it in 1887, and the work has since become emblematic of the impact of Edo ukiyo-e on European Post-Impressionism. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression of Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake, where the careful printing of the overlapping rain lines, dark river, and bridge structure preserves the visual shock that made Hiroshige's design unforgettable.