NOTES
Rain pours down on a funeral procession that snakes along under a twilight sky. This print by Henri Rivière recalls colorful Japanese woodblock prints, called ukiyo-e. An influx of objects imported from Japan led to a western European craze known as Japonisme. Rivière capitalized on that popularity in his own works, borrowing stylistic elements such as dramatic diagonals, flattened space, and silhouetted forms. He even stamped his initials in red ink to capture the appearance of Japanese artists’ signatures. With its heavy rainfall and oblique angles, Funeral with Umbrellas seems to reference Sudden Shower Over Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, a print by Utagawa Hiroshige, one of the best-known Japanese ukiyo-e artists.
