Visual analysis: a sudden shower in Edo

Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper. A tall, vertical format, about 36 × 24 cm (14 × 9½ inches).

Seen from above, a long wooden bridge crosses the lower part of the picture on a steep diagonal. Its wooden posts stand in the river.

Small figures hurry across the bridge in both directions, bent forward. Some hold umbrellas; others cover themselves with straw rain capes or mats.

On the gray-blue river below, a lone man poles a long, narrow raft of logs.

The far shore appears as a low, dim band of trees and buildings, gray and misty.

At the top, a band of dark cloud fades gradually into a lighter sky.

Rain is shown as hundreds of thin, straight dark lines falling at a slant over the whole scene: the figures, the bridge and the water.

Colors are limited, mostly blues, grays, browns and black, laid down in flat areas with almost no shadows. Near the top are small colored rectangles with the title and the series name written in Japanese.