The Suspension Bridge on the Border of Hida and Etchū Provinces (Hietsu no sakai tsuribashi 飛越の堺つりはし), from the series “Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces” (Shokoku meikyō kiran 諸国名橋奇覧)
The Suspension Bridge on the Border of Hida and Etchū Provinces (Hietsu no sakai tsuribashi 飛越の堺つりはし), from the series “Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces” (Shokoku meikyō kiran 諸国名橋奇覧)

On view

Asian Art
Huo Pavilion

The Suspension Bridge on the Border of Hida and Etchū Provinces (Hietsu no sakai tsuribashi 飛越の堺つりはし), from the series “Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces” (Shokoku meikyō kiran 諸国名橋奇覧),

ca. 1834 [Tenpō 5]

Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎, 1760–1849; born and died Tokyo, Japan
Published by Nishimuraya Yohachi 西村屋与八 (Eijudō 永寿堂)
Japanese
Edo period, 1603–1868
2012-60
Edo printmakers frequently created sets of images illustrating scenic locations around Japan. Hiroshige made his celebrated series Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō in 1833, after traveling this important route and sketching sites along the way. The Tōkaidō, or “Eastern sea route,” was a three-hundred-mile road with fifty- five official stops or stations, connecting the two most important cities of Edo Japan: Kyoto and Edo (present-day Tokyo). Eisen produced a set of Tōkaidō road prints, including the figure of a courtesan in front of Mount Fuji that you see in this group. The most renowned artist of the period, Hokusai produced his well-known print of figures crossing a suspension bridge for a series on provincial bridges, both real and imagined.

Information

Title
The Suspension Bridge on the Border of Hida and Etchū Provinces (Hietsu no sakai tsuribashi 飛越の堺つりはし), from the series “Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces” (Shokoku meikyō kiran 諸国名橋奇覧)
Dates

ca. 1834 [Tenpō 5]

Maker
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎
Published by Nishimuraya Yohachi 西村屋与八 (Eijudō 永寿堂)
Medium
Woodblock print (ōban yoko-e format); ink and color on paper
Dimensions
block: 26.4 × 38.7 cm (10 3/8 × 15 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund and Mary Trumbull Adams Art Fund
Object Number
2012-60
Place Made

Asia, Japan

Signatures
signed: Saki no Hokusai Iitsu hitsu 前北斎為一筆
Marks/Labels/Seals
Sealed: kiwame (certified) Verso: Lower left in pencil "767" (?), top left in pencil "507", lower right in pencil "772" (?), and also lower left "wS" in red ink.
Description

This is one of Hokusai's most well-known series, consisting of eleven known designs that, as the title suggests, depict all manner of bridges located at various locations throughout Japan. The proposed print depicts a precarious suspension bridge in a mountainous landscape. Two rural laborers heavily laden with goods cross the bridge, one depicted with his foot raised as if he is in motion, and the other at rest midway, gazing out at the vast scene spread out before and below her.

Hokusai depicts the landscape in varying shades of blue, yellow, and green that, as in most of his prints, intensify the visual appeal of nature while they diverge from naturalistic description. Overall the palette (aside from some vivid blue) is pale, due not to fading but to an intentional choice of subdued hues. The woman is a surrogate for the viewer, her back to us (and thus facing the landscape as do we) as she looks in awed silence at the vast landscape. The human presence is contrasted with the natural by juxtaposing the rigid and regular shapes of human intervention (the rectilinear bridge) with the curving irregularity of the mountainous landscape.

Culture
Japanese
Period
Edo (Japanese period)
Type
prints, albums, japanese printmaking styles, woodblock prints
Materials
ink, paper, oban, color
Techniques
woodcut (process)
Subject
mountains, deer, views, clouds, figures (representations), travel, women, bridges (built works)

–2012 Sebastian Izzard LLC Asian Art (New York, NY), sold to the Princeton University Art Museum, 2012.

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