Evening Snow at Uchikawa - Utagawa Hiroshige

A winter landscape from Hiroshige's Eight Views of Kanazawa series. This woodblock print shows travellers and a village under a heavy blanket of snow at twilight.

Utagawa Hiroshige produced this woodblock print as part of his Eight Views of Kanazawa series around 1835. The series adapts a traditional Chinese poetic theme to the coastal scenery of Kanazawa, located near modern-day Yokohama. This specific work depicts the village of Uchikawa during a winter evening. In the foreground, two figures traverse a steep, snow-covered slope. One traveller carries goods in baskets suspended from a shoulder pole. The other figure wears a wide straw hat and a traditional straw cape to shield against the weather. Their footprints create a trail in the fresh snow, leading the eye into the composition. Below the ridge, the thatched roofs of the village are heavy with white drifts. A strip of dark blue water occupies the middle ground, providing a sharp contrast to the muted tones of the land. Beyond the bay, a range of mountains sits under a heavy grey sky. Hiroshige used the bokashi technique to create the soft gradations of colour in the sky and water. This method involves hand-applying ink to the woodblock to achieve a fading effect, which suggests the dimming light of a winter twilight. The artist leaves large areas of the paper unprinted to represent the fallen snow. This economy of means is a characteristic of the ukiyo-e genre. The composition relies on a high perspective to show the relationship between the human figures, the coastal settlement, and the distant peaks. This print is a factual record of the topography and seasonal atmosphere of nineteenth-century Japan.