.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In Crossing a Bridge in the Snow, Hiroshige evokes a world of quiet movement and atmospheric transformation. The inscription quotes a couplet by the Chinese poet Bai Juyi (772–846), included as entry no. 376 in the classical poetry anthology Wakan roeishu and later referenced in the Noh play The Potted Trees (Hachinoki):
“Snow like goose-down flies and scatters;
People coated in crane feathers arise and wander.”
The poetic image of figures enveloped in falling snow is translated by Hiroshige into a landscape of remarkable delicacy, where the bridge and travelers seem almost to dissolve into the wintry atmosphere. As Donald Jenkins observes in The Ledoux Heritage, Hiroshige’s imagery draws upon the Chinese tradition of imaginary landscapes, adapting its poetic and pictorial conventions to the Japanese woodblock print. The result is a scene in which literary allusion, Chinese-inspired landscape imagery, and Hiroshige’s distinctive sensitivity to weather converge in an evocative meditation on winter.
“Snow like goose-down flies and scatters;
People coated in crane feathers arise and wander.”
The poetic image of figures enveloped in falling snow is translated by Hiroshige into a landscape of remarkable delicacy, where the bridge and travelers seem almost to dissolve into the wintry atmosphere. As Donald Jenkins observes in The Ledoux Heritage, Hiroshige’s imagery draws upon the Chinese tradition of imaginary landscapes, adapting its poetic and pictorial conventions to the Japanese woodblock print. The result is a scene in which literary allusion, Chinese-inspired landscape imagery, and Hiroshige’s distinctive sensitivity to weather converge in an evocative meditation on winter.