Snow at Ueno Toshogu Shrine (2025)

Description

Though the title of the design is Snow at Ueno Toshogu Shrine, the viewer is actually looking out from the Toshogu Shrine, with the main shrine building behind. Instead, the pagoda further away is prominently visible, behind one of the Lion-dogs guarding the Shrine, and some of the lanterns leading to it. A seemingly lone visitor is leaving the Shrine, tucked beneath an umbrella against the heavy snow falling. The design is denser and more demanding than Kawase Hasui compositions usually are, but still well balanced. Both the pagoda, red against the white of the snow and the grey of the muted sky, and the Lion-dogs, lanterns and female figure in the Toshogu Shrine itself, close to the viewer, capture the viewer's attention easily, successfully conveying the architectural richness and impressiveness of the location. This Kawase Hasui print is part of a group of designs he first made around 1930 for the publisher cooperation Sakai-Kawaguchi. The woodblocks were destroyed during the war however, and after the war the rights for the design were transferred to publisher Shobisha, who has republished the designs from the 1950s onward with newly carved blocks. Kawase Hasui was involved in this process and the prints are originals, but the listing of the date of the first edition could be debated. Within the woodblock print community the years of the initial designs are used and that is followed here.