Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road : Shōno (Rainstorm)

Over the course of his life Hiroshige painted more than 20 versions of his Tôkaidô series, and this Hôeidô-edition Fifty-Three Stations of the Tôkaidô, the debut of the subject, was particularly popular. The Yamatane collection print from this series is accompanied by a title page and is thus an important example thought to remain in the state first used to sell the prints in folio format. This print is one of the famous images from this series. The Shôno Station (present-day Shôno-cho in Suzuka city) shows the flat highway running alongside the Suzuka River, but there is no need for an exact location of the site. Of the 55 prints in this huge series, Hiroshige varied his depiction of season and weather, with this print showing Shôno in a deluge of rain. Figures hurry along the rain soaked road, with the sense of movement heightened by the sloping ground. The Kansai area Shijô school of painters influenced Hiroshige and other Utagawa school ukiyo-e artists, as seen in numerous works with similar compositions centered on bold diagonal lines.