Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond - Shirō Kasamatsu

Artist: Shirō Kasamatsu (1898–1991)

Title: Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond (Yau Shinobazu no Ike)

Japanese Title: 夜雨 不忍池

Design Date: January 1938

Publisher: Watanabe Shōzaburō

Medium: Genuine Japanese color woodblock print

Format: Ōban tate-e

Paper Size: Approximately 15.25 × 10.25 inches

This genuine Japanese color woodblock print is Shirō Kasamatsu’s Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond, originally published by Watanabe Shōzaburō in January 1938. The design is a classic example of prewar shin-hanga and of Kasamatsu’s particular talent for atmospheric night, rain, and snow scenes.

Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond depicts a solitary figure walking beneath an umbrella on a rainy winter night in Tokyo’s Ueno district. A tall illuminated streetlamp dominates the foreground, while the warm windows and lanterns of buildings beyond provide small points of light in the otherwise cool blue-gray landscape. Rain falls across the entire scene, softening the trees and buildings and almost dissolving the background into the night.

The reflections in the foreground are particularly effective. Kasamatsu allows the lantern light to break into irregular patches of yellow across the wet pavement, providing almost the only warmth in the composition. The lone pedestrian, receding pathway, dark bridge railing, and oversized streetlamp create a strong sense of depth and solitude. Like some of Hasui’s finest night scenes, it turns an ordinary walk through the city into something quiet and cinematic.

Inscriptions & Marks:

• Title: Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond
• Japanese Title: 夜雨 不忍池
• Artist: Shirō Kasamatsu
• Design Date: January 1938 (Shōwa 13)
• Signature: Shiro, lower left
• Artist Seal: Red Shiro seal beneath signature
• Publisher: Watanabe Shōzaburō, 6mm seal in margin
• Technique: Japanese color woodblock print

Condition: Very Good. Full margins with light overall toning consistent with age. Minor scattered foxing and surface marks are visible primarily in the margins, along with slight handling wear and waviness along the upper edge. Colors remain strong and atmospheric, with particularly good blue-gray tonal gradations and strong contrast in the illuminated lamps and their reflections. 

About the Artist: Shirō Kasamatsu (1898–1991) was an important twentieth-century Japanese printmaker whose career bridged both the shin-hanga and sōsaku-hanga movements. He studied under Kaburagi Kiyokata, and in 1919 his work attracted the attention of publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō. Kasamatsu went on to design more than fifty prints for Watanabe through the late 1940s. He later worked extensively with the Kyoto publisher Unsōdō and also produced prints that he carved, printed, and published himself.

Kasamatsu was particularly accomplished at depicting snow, rain, evening light, and other atmospheric effects. While his work shares some qualities with Kawase Hasui, Kasamatsu often employed stronger outlines and a somewhat more graphic treatment of form. His prewar Watanabe designs are an important part of his career and place him firmly within the classic period of the shin-hanga movement.

About the Print: Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond was designed in 1938 during Kasamatsu’s long collaboration with Watanabe and has become one of his better-known prewar night scenes. Shinobazu Pond lies within Ueno Park in Tokyo, but Kasamatsu largely avoids the recognizable landmarks of the location. Instead, he concentrates on the experience of walking through the neighborhood in rain—the glowing lamps, wet pavement, bare trees, and almost empty path.

The design was sufficiently successful that Watanabe continued printing it after the war, and both later Shōwa-period and Heisei-period impressions are known.

https://pages.uoregon.edu/jsmacollections/home/artists/shiro-kasamatsu-1898-1991-/rainy-night-at-shinobazu-pond.html