Taking Shelter from a Sudden Summer Shower under a Huge Tree

The sudden summer shower is a well-known theme in ukiyo-e prints. This print echos a 17th-century painting that depicted travelers from all walks of life taking refuge from a storm under a daimyō gate, symbolizing government’s protective role. Utamaro’s print replaces the daimyō gate with a large tree and introduces an amorous spark. An elegant young samurai in translucent black robes, the apparent star of the scene, seems to have caught the eye of a young woman in a hat who reties her kimono. At right, two young women dash forward, their legs fully exposed. The woman with the scarf in her mouth (an erotic signal) holds an umbrella and clasps the unfurling edge of her kimono. In the context of the official status divisions of Edo Japan, Utamaro’s image is at once socially awkward and socially liberating.

Resource: Chelsea Foxwell and Anne Leonard, Awash in Color: French and Japanese Prints, exh. cat. (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2012), p. 115.