Evening Snow on White Hair (Shiraga bosetsu), from the series "Personal Encounters from Eight Performances (Omi hakkei)"
- Date:
- c. 1847/52
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Evening Snow on White Hair (Shiraga bosetsu), from the 1842 series Personal Encounters from Eight Performances (Omi hakkei), is an Utagawa Kuniyoshi print that adapts the classical poetic and pictorial topos of the Eight Views of Omi to a witty kabuki theme. The original Eight Views of Omi, modeled on the Chinese Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang, names eight scenic sites around Lake Biwa, each paired with a seasonal or atmospheric condition such as evening snow, autumn moon, or evening bell. Edo print designers, including Kuniyoshi, repeatedly used the eight-views formula as a structural scaffold for unrelated series, in this case linking each conventional vista with a dramatic encounter from the world of the theater. Evening Snow on White Hair plays on the traditional Hira no Bosetsu, evening snow at Mount Hira, by relocating the snowfall to the white hair of an aged figure encountered on stage. Kuniyoshi's pun-rich approach is characteristic of late Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) and reflects the surreptitious strategies designers used during the Tenpo Reforms period to depict actors and dramatic scenes despite official restrictions. The color woodblock print uses the layered [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) palette and the figural conventions of mid-century Utagawa-school design. Kuniyoshi, although primarily celebrated for warrior prints, employed this kind of intertextual word-and-image play across many series of the 1840s. This impression is held by the Art Institute of Chicago.
Evening Snow on White Hair (Shiraga bosetsu), from the series "Personal Encounters from Eight Performances (Omi hakkei)" was created by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) in c. 1847/52.
Evening Snow on White Hair (Shiraga bosetsu), from the series "Personal Encounters from Eight Performances (Omi hakkei)" depicts winter.
