Ando Hiroshige, one of the two leading ukiyo-e landscape artists of the late Edo period (the other being Katsushika Hokusai), is extolled as the artist of poetic landscapes featuring snow, the moon, and rain. Here, a large lantern and a temple gate are so closely viewed that motifs are cropped, while the use of one-point perspective, a Western technique, to depict the pathway to the main hall of Kinryusan temple contrasts the powerful details of the foreground with the inexorability of the temple hall in the distance. Through striking compositions and sophisticated color schemes, Hiroshige represented the great forces of nature, evoking the poetic moods of particular seasons, times of day, and kinds of weather.

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