Bridge in the rain, after Hiroshige

Bridge in the Rain, after Hiroshige, painted in 1887 and now at the Van Gogh Museum, is one of a series of translations Van Gogh made of Japanese woodblock prints during his Paris period — a direct creative dialogue with the Japonisme that was transforming European art. Van Gogh translated Hiroshige's Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge from the Hundred Famous Views of Edo into oil paint, literally copying the composition while adding his own bordered frame inscribed with Japanese characters. The exercise was not mere homage but an attempt to understand the principles that made Japanese art distinctive: the bold flat color, the high horizon, the decorative use of rain as parallel vertical lines.

The translation from woodblock print to oil painting required Van Gogh to find painterly equivalents for the print's flat, unmodulated color areas and bold linear structure. He treats the rain as a graphic device — ruled lines of paint that create a dense vertical pattern across the middle ground. The color is deliberately flattened and decorative rather than atmospheric. The painted border with pseudo-Japanese characters frames the image, making explicit its status as cultural translation.