Kokan Bannai’s Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow

A landscape of a snowy wooden bridge. Vehicles cross it in view of boats and city buildings.

Kokan Bannai, Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow, 1930, woodblock print, 9 ½ in x 14 ¼ in, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College.

About the Artist

Kokan Bannai remains a relatively mysterious figure in Japanese art history. He is best known for working in the Nihonga style, a modern Japanese painting tradition that blended traditional Japanese aesthetics with Western materials and techniques.1 Bannai’s venture into printmaking was limited but deliberate. He began a series inspired by the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō road, following in the footsteps of famed ukiyo-e artists like Utagawa Hiroshige, but only completed three works. This print, created in 1930, comes from a period of intense transformation in Japan. The country was emerging from the devastation of the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, which had destroyed much of Tokyo.2 Bannai’s print may be read as a quiet meditation on the city’s resilience and rebirth. The inclusion of buses and streetcars, hallmarks of a modernizing metropolis, alongside traditional structures like Nihonbashi suggests a city at a crossroads, navigating between old and new. The tall brick building in the background is thought to be one of the few that survived the 1923 disaster—a symbol of endurance nestled within the wintry calm. Snow, here, serves not only as a weather phenomenon but as a visual metaphor: it blankets the city, quieting noise and softening damage, suggesting both peace and persistence.

About the Work

Kokan Bannai’s Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow offers a serene view of winter in Tokyo (then Edo), depicting quiet beauty. Created in 1930, this woodblock print captures a moment of stillness amid urban bustle, depicting Japan’s capital under a blanket of snow. The scene centers on Nihonbashi—literally “Japan Bridge”—a historically significant structure that once marked the official starting point of the Tōkaidō, the major route connecting Edo with Kyoto.3 More than just a physical crossing, the bridge was a bustling center of commerce, traffic, and communication, its symbolism embedded in both local geography and national identity. 

In Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow, the bridge arches gracefully across a calm river. Its stone surface is dusted with fresh snow, and lamps along the span echo the quiet illumination of a snowy day. Vehicles—likely early buses and trolleys—pass across, and pedestrians appear tucked against the cold. Along the riverbanks, buildings with snow-covered rooftops hint at the life continuing beneath, now subdued by the quieting effects of snowfall. A few boats float in the river with some idle others dusted in white; one mid-journey, suggesting that even through the snow, the city endures.

Bannai’s composition blends geometric structure with a sense of atmospheric delicacy. The strong horizontal of the bridge contrasts with the outlines of the surrounding architecture, softened by a pale haze. Hints of distant buildings blur into the misty sky, evoking the visual quiet of a heavy snow. The palette of soft grays, whites, and cool blues situates the viewer firmly in the chill of winter. Bannai uses color selectively as the muted scene is punctuated by touches of green and yellow in the vehicles, which draw the eye and reinvigorate the otherwise tranquil setting. 

Medium

Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow was created using traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques, an art form that had reached peak popularity during the Edo period (1603–1868) through the genre known as ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world.”4 Though Bannai was working in 1930, long after the height of ukiyo-e, he adopted this historic method for his own stylistic purposes.

The print would have been made through a collaborative process typical of woodblock printing. Bannai would create the original design, which would then be carved into woodblocks by a specialist artisan. Each color required a separate block, and a printer would then apply pigment and press the image onto paper in layers.5 

The soft gradations of gray and blue suggest bokashi, a technique in which ink is delicately brushed onto the block for smooth transitions in color, often used for portraying mist and snowfall.6 The rarity of Bannai’s prints, as he completed only a few, makes each impression significant. While the total number of impressions of this print is unknown, its limited production adds to its value and uniqueness. The quality and consistency of the colors in the Amherst print suggest that it is a well-preserved early impression. 

Weather

The weather event portrayed, snowfall, is a frequent and meaningful motif in Japanese visual culture. Edo (now Tokyo) receives moderate winter snow, and it was a favored subject of ukiyo-e artists for its visual possibilities. In the print, snow muffles sound, mutes color, and slows movement, creating a contemplative atmosphere. In this print, snow is shown both in motion and in accumulation. It rests gently on rooftops, bridges, and trees, marking the passage of time but also sweeps across the print. Bannai’s depiction is both realistic and idealized. He chooses not to dramatize the weather but to let it speak through subtlety, inviting the viewer to dwell in the stillness.

Provenance

The Mead Art Museum at Amherst College holds a remarkable collection of Japanese woodblock prints, much of it acquired through generous gifts and careful curation. Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow was purchased in 2010 by William W. Collins (Class of 1953) using the museum’s Print Fund. Collins’s donation to the collection of Japanese prints reflects a trend among American collectors in the 20th century, who sought to preserve and appreciate this intricate art form. The Mead’s collection offers students and scholars rare access to Japanese print traditions, not only from the Edo period but from the transitional and modern moments that followed. 

Conclusion

Kokan Bannai’s Nihonbashi Bridge in Snow is more than a beautiful winter scene. It’s a meditation on time, weather, and resilience. Through delicate technique and thoughtful composition, Bannai invites viewers to reflect on the quiet moments of city life, moments when snow slows the world just enough for its beauty to become visible.

Footnotes

  1. Arünas Gelūnas, “Making art in the Japanese way: Nihonga as a process and symbolic action,” Acta Orientalia Vilnensia 5 (2004): 84–90. ↩︎
  2. “Tokyo-Yokohama Earthquake of 1923,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/event/Tokyo-Yokohama-earthquake-of-1923 ↩︎
  3.  Morohashi Kumiko, “Renowned Nihon-bashi Bridge, Traffic Origin on Japan’s Major Roadways,” Government of Japan Public Relations Office: Highlighting Japan, https://www.gov-online.go.jp/eng/publicity/book/hlj/html/202309/202309_02_en.html. ↩︎
  4. Department of Asian Art, “Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style,” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/woodblock-prints-in-the-ukiyo-e-style. ↩︎
  5. F. Morley Fletcher, Wood-Block Printing: A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting & Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice (London: John Hogg, 1916), 60–80. ↩︎
  6. Roger Keyes, Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Catalogue of the Mary Ainsworth Collection (Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1984). ↩︎