Japanese Prints

Tea houses and inns on the street overlooking Edo Bay. Female innkeepers are trying to drag travelers inside.

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Ferry boat with travelers is crossing the river. Passengers are patiently waiting for ferry boat. Fuji is seen in the background.

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“The wide canal, lined with whitewashed warehouses, was jammed with barges and fishing boats. Smoke from countless charcoal braziers and stoves formed a haze over the low tiled and thatched roof tops that extended over the plain in all directions. Through it he could see Edo Castle perched on its hill at the end of the canal. There Ieyasu, first of the Tokugawa shoguns, had established the seat of his military dictatorship seventy-four years ago, fifteen years after defeating his rival warlords in the Battle of Sekigahara. The upturned eaves of the keep’s many roofs made it look like a pyramid of white birds ready to take flight: a fitting symbol of the peace that had followed that battle, the longest peace Japan had known in five centuries. Beyond the castle, the western hills were a soft shadow, only slightly less blue than the sky. Mount Fuji’s distant snow-capped cone rose above them. Temple bells tolled faintly, adding to the panoply of sounds.” Laura Jon Rowland, Shinju

Daimyo’s procession passing along a street of houses. Background: seashore, ships in the bay. Shinagawa was bustling with many shops, teahouses, restaurants and redlight quarters.

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Nihonbashi bridge was located in the centre of Edo and was the starting point of the Tokaido journey. Daimyo’s cortège is crossing the bridge. Fish-vendors are getting out of the way of daimyo’s cortège.

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“Yoriki Sano lchiro, Edo’s newest senior police commander, made his way slowly on horseback across Nihonbashi Bridge. Early on this sunny, clear winter morning, throngs of people streamed around him: porters carrying baskets of vegetables to and from market; water vendors with buckets suspended from poles on their shoulders; shoppers and tradesmen bent low under the packages on their backs. The planks thundered with the steps of wood-soled feet; the air was bright with shouts, laughter, and chatter. Even the hallmarks of Sano’s samurai status couldn’t speed his passage.” Laura Jon Rowland, Shunju

Artist:Sekkyo, Title: Japanese Woodblock Print of Fish Market at Nihonbashi, Oban

“At the foot of the bridge, Sano passed the noisy, malodorous fish market. He edged his horse through the narrow winding streets of Nihonbashi, the peasants’ and merchants’ quarter named after the bridge. In the open wooden storefronts of one street, sake sellers bartered with their customers. Around the next corner, men labored over steaming vats in a row of dyers’ shops. Mud and refuse squished under the horses’ hooves and pedestrians’ shoes.” Laura Jon Rowland, Shunju

As an old Japanese legend says at the Shinto Oji shrine, there is an old tree (the ‘Garment Nettle Tree’) at which all the trickster fox spirits (kitsune) of that province gather once a year at night, bearing torches to light their way; at the meeting they receive their orders for the following year.

From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo