Ukiyoe Reproductions - landscapes

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Ando Hiroshige Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River (Sumidagawa Suijin no mori Massaki) Price A$150 (unframed)) Status New reproduction Condition Excellent Size 225mm x 340mm Availability For sale

Despite the restful beauty of the view below, our attention here is caught from the start by the ela-borate blossoms of the double-petalled cherry (yae-zakura) that frames the scene from the right. Such framing on the right, the side from which the Ja-panese eye tends to enter a composition, is relative-ly rare in this series and seems reserved for some-what 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 here presumably looking down from the raised embankment that paralleled the Sumi-da 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 (see pi. 37), and in the middle distance, we see a lumber raft and two cargo ships making their way around the broad bend of the Sumida River 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

torn'. 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 of 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 in this view to the northwest could easily be seen from this low, broad area along the river.

This particular impression differs in various small ways from that in the Hirose collection reproduced in the Ukiyoe taikei; it shows no wood grain in the sky, and it lacks various bokashi gradations (for example, on the shrine roof, on the tree trunk to the lower right, and on the tip of Mount Tsukuba). It does, however, have kimedashi embossing on the petals of the cherry blossoms (not visible in reproduction). Given the less elabor-ate attention to gradations and the slight gaps in the color blocks on the edges of the signature cartouche, it is clearly a somewhat later impres-sion, although still one of high quality.

Smith H.D and Poster A.G., Hiroshige, One Hundred Famous views of Edo., George Braziller Inc., 1st edn., 4th reprint , 1986