Evening Snow on the Asuka Mountain (Asukayama no Bosetsu)

To create the soft contours of the hillsides in this lovely rendering of the “snow in the evening” subject, Hiroshige’s printer employed a technique called bokashi. Unlike most woodblock printing, in which ink is applied evenly across the block for a consistent plane of color, for this technique the printer uses moisture and smears to create gradual transitions from thick to thin ink, blurring between dark and light tones.