Sudden Shower over Shin Ohashi Bridge and Atake

Shin-Ohashi Bridge crosses the lower half of the picture diagonally. On the bridge, people in hats and straw mats hurry across with hunched backs. On the river a single man works a raft, and the far shore in the distance looks like a dark shadow veiled in rain. Black rain clouds hang low overhead. People cover their heads with hats and mats to avoid the rain.

Many fine, sharp lines of rain are carved layer upon layer, and lines at different angles convey the strength of the downpour. The contrast between the black timber framing of the bridge piers, the gray-blue river, and the pale planks of the bridge impressively captures a moment of a summer shower.

Shin-Ohashi was the third bridge built across the Sumida River, and the Fukagawa area on the far side was called "Atake" after the place where the shogunate's great state ship, the Atakemaru, was moored. Evening showers were a feature of Edo summers, and the figures on the bridge, with no place to shelter, depict a scene from daily life.

This print belongs to the summer section, and its censor's seal dates it to the ninth month of Ansei 4 (1857). Van Gogh copied this print in oils in 1887 and introduced the ukiyo-e depiction of rain to the West. Multiple impressions exist, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and differences such as the gradation of the rain clouds can be seen from impression to impression.