A visitor under an umbrella watches rain fall over the hills

Rain falls in fine straight lines across the whole sheet. A figure in a dark kimono stands at the wooden railing of the temple's veranda under a grey umbrella, looking out over dark green wooded hills to a range of blue mountains fading into the rain. At the right the temple hall rises on its posts beneath a curved roof, a thick striped bell-rope hanging beside a red-lacquered pillar with a red tassel at its end. Bare trees show below the platform, and the boards of the veranda run wet into the foreground.

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) was the defining landscape artist of shin-hanga, the movement that carried Japanese woodblock printing into the twentieth century. From 1918 he worked with the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, travelling almost continuously through Japan and turning roadside sketches into prints of unusual atmospheric precision. Snow, rain and failing light were his real subjects, as much as any temple or harbour. In 1956 Japan recognised his woodblock technique as an Intangible Cultural Property. His prints are held by the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.