• Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>
Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - <i>Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei</i>

Utagawa Toyokuni II (二代目歌川豊国) (artist 1777 – 1835)

Night Rain at Ōyama (大山夜雨): View of the Summit above the former Fudō Temple (従前不動頂上之図) - from Eight Views Of Famous Places (名所八景) - Ōyama ya-u: Juzen Fudō chojo no kei - Meisho hakkei

Print


ca 1833 – 1834
14.75 in x 10 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signature: Toyokuni hitsu
Publisher: Iseya Rihei (Marks 01-122)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
British Museum
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Adachi Museum of Art
Royal Ontario Museum
Google maps
Art Institute of Chicago
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art
Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Culture History
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan)
The Chester Beatty Library
Honolulu Museum of Art - 20th century reproduction
National Diet Library
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
Carnegie Museum of Art - they own two copies
Victoria and Albert Museum (via Meisterdrucke.us.com)
Rhode Island School of Design There is another copy of this print in black and white in Traditional Woodblock Prints of Japan by Seiichiro Takahashi, 1973 edition, p. 128.

The text on page 127 says: "In the print market today such landscape scenes of his as Oyama Yau (Evening Rain on Mount Oyama), which appears in Figure 137 and is from the set Meisho Hakkei command higher prices than his prints of beautiful woman. This print is said to have been much influenced by Hokusai's Red Fuji..."

According to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, "In the first edition the series title is written in standard script; in the second edition, it is in semi-cursive script, and there are some other changes in the blocks." This example would therefore be from the second edition. The Chicago Art Institute has an example from the first edition (2nd image above).

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Illustrated:

1) in color in Japanese Prints: Images of the Floating World, Barry Davies Oriental Art, #63, illustrated on p. 87.

2) in color in The Printer's Eye: Ukiyo-e from the Grabhorn Collection, 2013, #127, p. 145, text on page 188.

Laura Allen wrote: "Toyokuni II's memorable 'Night Rain over Ōyama: View of the Summit of the Former Fudō Temple" is one of a set of eight prints depicting famous places in Kanagawa Prefecture. Mt. Ōyama lies at the southwest end of the Tanzawa mountain range, where frequent rain and mist conferred on it the nickname "Rainfall Mountain" (Afuriyama). An ancient sacred site, Ōyama has both a Buddhist temple at its base, and a Shinto shrine atop the summit. Steep stone stairways lead from Ōyama-dera, dedicated to the esoteric Buddhist deity Fudō Myōō, to Afuri Jinja, where the Shinto deity Sekison Daigongen is enshrined.

A popular pilgrimage site throughout the Edo period, the mountain was thronged with religious devotees during the three-month period each year when climbing to the peak was permitted. In the print, Ōyama is shown in the midst of a torrential downpour. A few hardy pilgrims have already ascended to a point above the rooftop of the temple gate: farther up a few others, led by a many carrying a symbolic wooden sword (ōkitachi), climb toward the lower shrine. The main shrine buildings are just visible at the top of the mountain, high above. At the left, shrouded in the mist, is a familiar conical peak of Mt. Fuji."

3) In a small black and white detail in The Sakai Collection: Ukiyo-e-gaku by Gankow Sakai, 1978, p. 94, #461.

4) in color in Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections: British Museum III, supervised by Muneshige Narazaki, Kodansha Ltd, 1988, #39.

5) in color in 原色浮世絵大百科事典 (Genshoku Ukiyoe Daihyakka Jiten), vol. 3, p. 121, #296.

6) in color in International Exchange Exhibition: Japan and the West in Japanese Prints, Kanagawa Prefecture International Exchange Executive Committee, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1982, p. 18, #46.

7) in black and white in Traditional Woodblock Prints of Japan by Seiichiro Takahashi, 1973 edition, p. 128.

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This example was exhibited April 2 - August 28, 2022 in Learning from the Japanese: The International Block Print Renaissance at the Wichita Art Museum.

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There are other copies of this print in the Worcester Art Museum, Oberlin College and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
Iseya Rihei (伊勢屋利兵衛) (publisher)
Mount Fuji (富士山) (genre)