Kiba in the Snow 木場乃雪

The sun has set. Snow is steadily piling up on the row of black buildings in the darkness. Logs floating in the river are also covered in snow. Looking up at the sky, lit faintly by the brightness of the snow, we see that those white crystals show no sign of ceasing to fall. We feel the painfully chilly air, yet, somehow, sense something heartwarming. Could it be because of the bright yellow light spilling from the windows? The subject depicted in this print is the Fukagawa Kiba or lumberyard, during the early Showa period. The artist, Kawase Hasui, created many prints capturing scenes in Tokyo still faintly redolent of Edo, depicting them with a rich emotional ambience. The lumberyard district that is the setting for this print had done a thriving business from the Edo period on. When the Tokugawa shogunate was established in Edo, lumber wholesalers set up shop near the Nihonbashi bridge. Edo, however, was a city that suffered many fires. Having large amounts of flammable lumber concentrated in its center meant that they burned every time a fire broke out. Thus, in 1701, most of the lumber wholesalers moved to Fukagawa, in what is now the area around Kiba Park in Koto Ward, and a new famous place in Edo was born. The Kiba lumberyard supported the development of Edo and Tokyo until the wholesalers’ relocation to Shin Kiba (“new lumberyard”), also in Koto Ward.