Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. ❤️

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔

10-Minute Art Challenge: Hiroshige’s ‘Sudden Rain’

a woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige of a river and bridge in the rain

The NY Times has been doing these challenges every Friday where you sit and look at one piece of art for 10 minutes. Last week featured a woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige called Great Bridge: Sudden Rain at Atake, a piece that Vincent van Gogh had in his personal collection and painted a version of himself.

I didn’t expect to last the entire 10 minutes — a slow start to the day (dentist, errands) had me feeling rushed and a computer with an infinite number of apps & websites just a tab or click away is not the ideal medium for this exercise — but once I got going (or, rather, once I slowed down), it was pretty easy. (via laura olin)

Discussion  6 comments

David E. Wheeler

Ooo, going to the Van Gogh museum on Monday, as it happens. Hope I can see his version there!

Brian Haskell

the Van Goth was in Brooklyn this spring for a rare showing of the Brooklyn Museum's 100 Famous Views, along with his version of the plum tree garden & many of Takashi Murakami's versions of Hiroshige. All breathtaking, enjoy!

Reply in this thread

Michael Beuselinck

Funny, I purchased a reproduction of the Hiroshige print from Dave Bull's shop in Tokyo a few months ago. I didn't know about the van Gogh version!

John Conner

Kind of like a "slow food" version after art appreciation. I can totally get behind this. Once when visiting Minneapolis, I spent half a day at the MIA museum with Bouguereau’s Temptation.

Some family and friends thought it was weird that I visited a museum for half a day and spent the whole time in front of one painting. I think this is the best way to experience museum art. Pick a few pieces that of are particular interest to you for some personal reason and focus on them. You miss so much more when you try to see everything.

This was a couple decades ago and after having sat there a couple hours, security allowed me to get up close and examine the details. It's really magical to get to experience a piece of artwork you've admired for so long.

Jeffrey Shrader

Totally agree. On another Kottke post, I relayed one of my favorite art experiences -- spending so long in front of Departure that I fell half-way asleep and started dreaming about the meaning of the piece. More recently, my mom and I spent an hour at the Met in front of another Beckmann piece. Art with a lot of creative surplus encourages this kind of slow attention in a way that I find so rewarding.

Reply in this thread

Daniel Swartz

Very relaxing and insightful exercise. Highly recommended.

Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.

Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!