Snow on Willow Bridge

The woodblock print designer Ohara Shōson specialized in imagery devoted to wild birds and plants. Independent landscape scenes, such as this color woodblock from 1927, are rare within his overall print production. In Japan, there is a tradition of representing famous places, often under the emotional intensity of seasonal weather conditions. Here, Shōson illustrates a winter view the Yanagibashi or "Willow Bridge" spanning the river Kanda near its convergence with the Sumida River: two women dressed in Japanese kimono huddle under their paper umbrellas while crossing the bridge during a heavy snowfall.

Ohara Shōson’s career spanned the period during which shin hanga (Japanese for "new print") developed as an art movement in Japan in the early 20th century. Like other shin hanga masters, Shōson looked to traditional Japanese sources and borrowed from the late 18th and 19th-century ukiyo-e or "floating world" school tradition of color woodblock prints, not only in subject—from beautiful women and idealized landscapes to bird-and- flower scenes—but also in style.