歌川広重画 「あふみ八景 堅田落雁」|Descending Geese at Katada, from the series Eight Views of Ōmi (Ōmi hakkei)

A flock of geese descends through the twilight sky, their shapes silhouetted against a luminous full moon. Below, a lone fishing boat glides across the still waters of Lake Biwa, its sail catching the last light of day. This woodblock print, "Descending Geese at Katada," captures a specific moment within the "Eight Views of Ōmi," a popular series of landscape prints by Utagawa Hiroshige. He created this series around 1834, drawing on established landscape conventions and likely using existing illustrations, as he had not traveled west of Kyoto at this time. The subtle gradations of color, particularly in the sky and water, are achieved through a labor-intensive technique called bokashi, which was a hallmark of the ukiyo-e tradition.