Japanese Woodblock Print, Showa Era printing, Number 35 from the series One Hundred Views of Edo

SIZE IN INCHES: 4 x 6 inches

DESPITE THE RESTFUL BEAUTY OF THE VIEW IN THIS PRINT, our attention here is caught from the start by the elaborate blossoms of the double-petalled cherry tree that frames the scene from the right. Such framing on the right, the side from which the Japanese eye tends to enter a composition, is relatively rare in this series and seems reserved for somewhat startling effect, in contrast to the indirection implied by a leftward frame. This is appropriate to the flower in question, a baroque and fragrant late-blooming hybrid that is rather out of keeping with normal Japanese taste. It is not surprising that Western connoisseurs have admired this print more than their Japanese counterparts.

We are presumably looking down from the raised embankment that paralleled the Sumida river in the district known as Mukojima, "the island on the other side" (not really an island, but it appeared so from the west bank). The people on the lower left are walking toward the Hashiba Ferry, and in the middle distance we see a lumber raft and two cargo ships making their way around the broad bend of the Sumida below Senju, as it shifts its course from east to south. On their way, the boatmen will have marked and paid silent homage to the shrine that we see at the lower right, its entrance shown by the lantern-flanked stone torii. This is Suijin no Mori, the "Grove of the Water God," a shrine dedicated to the Sumida river itself. The spot is said to have been the mouth of the ancient Sumida, when the land southward still lay under water. This view, looking upstream to the dark blue bokashi in the distance, is thus a powerful symbolic content for the city of Edo, child of the Sumida..

Across the river to the left is the Massaki area, and in the center distance the now-familiar form of Mount Tsukuba, which although a bit out of place to this view to the northwest could easily be seen from this low, broad area along the river.

VG, minor flaws