A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri)
The Falls at Aoigaoka in Edo
Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1827 (date on the Met record)
What it is
A broad weir at Aoigaoka in Edo spills water in a low curtain, and travellers and porters pass along the road beside it.
Why it matters
Here the waterfall is inside the city, a working weir instead of a mountain cascade.
What to notice
The water falls in a short, wide sheet, and the people beside it walk by without stopping.
Even in the city there is a waterfall on the way to somewhere else.
The record
- Artist
- Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760–1849)
- Series
- A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri)
- Date
- c. 1827 (date on the Met record)
- Medium
- woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Source
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art · JP1086
Impression note. A vertical ōban, about 37 by 26 cm on the Met record. Hokusai’s falling water is carved as long, separate lines, and a clean impression keeps them unbroken from the lip of the fall to the pool. This is the largest clean open impression of the design the Met holds. Impression variance is real — printings differ in wiping and fading — and choosing the finest openly held impression is the curatorial act.
Public domain; faithfully reproduced.
Bring it home
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm.
From the same series
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