<b>NIGHT BRIDGE</b> / Kobayashi Eijiroc. 1930$800</em>

Details

 This moody night scene depicts a wooden bridge with people traversing the composition overhead. At the same time, below, a hazy fog-like mist rises from the water, softening the focus of village lights out in the distance. A porter stands at the bow of a boat, balancing between shadow and night, acting as an anchor in this thoughtful composition.

This design may look familiar, as it is a reworking of a Whistler oil painting, illustrated below. The original oil painting is known by the title "Nocturne: Blue and Gold—Old Battersea Bridge, 1878." It is interesting to note how the winds of influence carried, as the Whistler oil painting was inspired by Hiroshige's designs of bridges such as, "Fireworks at Ryogoku Bridge, 1858," also in this exhibition. In Whistler's oil painting, the perspective is closer to the bridge with an exaggerated emphasis on the steepness. As in Hiroshige's composition, Whistler's painting is populated with people crossing the bridge while fireworks are seen erupting in the distance overhead.

Connoisseur's Note

This woodblock print was produced in the 1930s by the Shima Print Co. and was acquired by Robert O. Muller, the famed Shin Hanga collector. This print is a reworking of an earlier, most likely pre-earthquake design, produced by Eijiro for the Hasegawa-Nishinomiya publishing house. This design is a stripped-down version of the scene and is a much closer adaptation of the Whistler painting. As both versions go, this design displays a stronger atmospheric quality and a more poignant poetic sensibility.