ANDO HIROSHIGE : “Oshashi Bridge & Atake in a suden shower”, 1856 - engraving on wood, 36,8- 25 cm. - Tokyo, Museum of Fuji Art

Ando Hiroshige is considered the last great master of Japanese stamp, interested, as Hokusai, for the natural elements and landscape. His unquestionable masterpiece is the series of “One hundred famous landscapes from Edo”, from which this scene is perhaps its most famous composition.

By many means, this engraving is an authentic impressionist work. Hiroshige has caught the precise moment at which the fine and strong summer rain -which he denominated “white rain”- falls in the Atake Bridge . The sensation of dynamism caused by the multiple rain drops, the figures sheltering under the umbrellas, and the boat that looks for a place to refuge is simply fabulous. The work was very admired by Vincent van Gogh, who affirmed that he envied the Japanese painters for “his style as simple as to breathe” and who in 1887 made a copy of the work, now exhibited in the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.