enjoyed the particular attention of the Tokugawa family, but in the Meiji period it was abandoned and today only two of its buildings still exist. The water spilling over the dam was commonly referred to as Otaki, “the great waterfall”. In actual fact, it was considerably more modest in size than is shown here. Possibly not only compositional considerations, but also the popular name prompted Hiroshige to exaggeration.
The Dam on the Otonashi River at Oji, popularly known as “The Great Waterfall”
Oji Otonashigawa entai sezoku Otaki to tonau
February 1857
Colour woodblock print, 36 × 24 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
This ferry across the Sumidagawa was in the northern outskirts of Edo. It served pilgrims seeking to visit the Zenkoji monastery.
Once, a monk named Teison was visited in his sleep by the Amida Buddha venerated in Zenkoji (Shinano province), who instructed the monk to make an exact image of him. Teison moulded a sculptural group of three figures: the Amida Buddha and two accompanying bodhisattvas, Kannon and Seishi. This work was completed in 1195 and the composition was placed in a temple, which became known as Zenkoji.
The Zenkoji Monastery by the Kawaguchi Ferry
Kawaguchi-no watashi Zenkoji
February 1857
Colour woodblock print, 36 × 24 cm
Gift of Anna Ferris, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Mount Atago stands to the east of Yamanote, an aristocratic section of the city containing the mansions of daimyo and high-ranking samurai. It got its name from the Atago-jinja or Atago-gongen shrine constructed on its summit. The most famous and popular festival at Atago-jinja was called Bishamon-matsuri and dedicated to Bishamon-ten, the guardian of the North in the Buddhist pantheon and one of the seven gods of happiness in popular belief.
Mount Atago, the Shiba District
Shiba Atagoyama
August 1857
Colour woodblock print, 36 × 24 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Until the mid-nineteenth century Hiroo was a rural locality in the Shibuya district to the north-west of Edo. Only towards the very end of the Edo period did people begin to build teahouses and restaurants there. It became a destination for day-trippers out to see “untouched nature”.
In the 1850s the main attraction of Hiroo was the restaurant, originally called Owariya, which stood where Hiroshige depicted it, on the left bank of the Furukawa. The speciality of the house was an eel dish, highly prized in the Eastern Capital.
The Furukawa River at Hiroo
Hiroo Furukawa
July 1856
Colour woodblock print, 34 × 24 cm
Gift of Anna Ferris, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
In Hiroshige’s time, Meguro was part of the quiet outskirts of forests and fields. From time to time the shoguns practised falconry here, while in spring the peasants gathered young bamboo shoots which they sold by the gate of the Ryusenji monastery.
The history of the monastery goes back to the time of Ieyasu and his great adviser Tenkai, the monk who founded Kanyeiji. Tenkai believed that the new capital should be protected by divine forces as well as men, and he gave instructions for the building of five outlying monasteries. Meguro Fudo was the largest of the monasteries and considered the most important.
The Chiyogaike Pond at Meguro
Meguro Chiyogaike
July 1856
Colour woodblock print, 36 × 24 cm
Gift of Anna Ferris, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
There were two structures connected with one of the most popular cults in Japanese folk religion, that of Mount Fuji. One of them, Shin-Fuji (“New Fuji”), is shown here. The cult of Fuji has its roots in mythological time. Pilgrimages up the mountain began in the ninth century and by the Edo period had become more common.
The New Fuji at Meguro that Hiroshige depicted in the present print was raised in 1829. It took the form of an earth mound overgrown with grass.
New Fuji at Meguro
Meguro Shin-Fuji
April 1857
Colour woodblock print, 36 × 24 cm
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Two fuji-zuka were put up at Meguro in the early part of the nineteenth century. The New Fuji was new in relation to the other artificial mountain constructed 17 years earlier, in 1812, less than a mile to the north. After the appearance of a second fuji-zuka, the older mound became known as Moto-Fuji, “the Original Fuji”. Moto-Fuji was intended not so much as a setting for the practice of religious ritual but as a pleasant place to spend time admiring the views across the water-meadows of the Megurogawa river.
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