Kinryuzan Temple at Asakusa (Asakusa Kinryuzan), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)"
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797-1858)
1856
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 35.5 × 23.8 cm (14 × 9 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
In this print, a red gate and lantern stand out against the white snow, marking the path to Kinryūzan Temple. The combination of red and white is particularly auspicious in Japan; here, it signals the renewal of a new year. A large lantern like this one still greets visitors at Sensōji temple in Asakusa, an entertainment district. In Hiroshige’s time, as today, the path to the main temple would be lined with shops and food vendors and bustling with people, all of which is absent in this scene—perhaps due to the weather or the hour.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
