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Autumn at Asakusa; Viewing cherry blossoms at Ueno Park
Hishikawa Moronobu 菱川師宣 (1618-1694)
17th century
- Medium
- Ink, color, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (.266): 179.9 x 382.3 cm (70 13/16 x 150 1/2 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
In March 1657 a fire destroyed much of the city of Edo (Tokyo). More than one hundred thousand people perished in the blaze or in the snowstorm that immediately followed. Fashions distinctive to the late seventeenth century are clearly evident among the nearly four hundred figures populating the expanse of this painting. Thus, these screens, painted in the artist's final years, should be understood as Moronobu's celebration of the seasonal pleasures of a resurrected and vital metropolis.
