Karasaki no Yan (Night Rain on Karasaki Pine), Utagawa Hiroshige

Archive Label 1999:
The ancient pine tree of Karasaki stands brooding in the heavy night rain. The single venerable pine spreads out, as large as an entire forest, dominating the space. The absence of any human presence and the utter stillness of the scene emphasize the timelessness of the image. A poem referring to the famous pine appears in the upper left:

Elsewhere will they talk of the music of the evening breeze that has made the pine of Karasaki famous. The voice of the wind is not heard through the sound of the rain in the night.

In the nineteenth century, depictions of scenic spots on Lake Biwa in the district of Omi, east of Kyoto, had been part of the artistic vocabulary for several centuries. Hiroshige was not introducing new scenery, but reinterpreting a well-known view that would have evoked other images and poetic allusions in the viewer's mind. The Omi series shows the influence of the Japanese literati tradition with its predilection for monochrome landscapes and sparse description. Here Hiroshige uses subdued colors, the black and grey of the pine, blue and deep indigo of the water and silver of the long vertical lines of the mica rain.