The Tama River at Ide, Yamashiro Province
Original title: The Tama River at Ide, Yamashiro Province
kurzbeschreibung
Three women in richly patterned kimonos stroll along the bank of the Tama River in Yamashiro Province. Suzuki Harunobu made this color woodblock print, probably in 1766; it is an ukiyo-e print in ink and color on paper.
Description
Eyes lowered, three women walk beside the water, their hair piled high and ornamented, broad kimono sashes at their waists. Flowers and trees line the riverbank and frame the figures within their natural setting. A block of Chinese characters sits at the upper right, with a smaller text field below it. Earth tones dominate the palette, broken by blue and orange.
Context
The sheet belonged to a series in which Harunobu presented famous rivers of Japan — here the Tama at Ide in Yamashiro Province, in the area of present-day Kyoto. As a pioneer of multicolor woodblock printing (nishiki-e), he shaped the Edo period. Elegant female figures in landscapes were among the core motifs of ukiyo-e, which idealized the pleasure quarters and nature at once. The characters probably point to a poem or a poetic allusion to the place.
Impact
The layout reads as calm and balanced; the figures merge almost imperceptibly into the landscape. Restrained earth tones, punctuated by blue and orange accents, create a refined, quiet mood — very much in the spirit of Harunobu's delicate aesthetic.
Technique
The image was printed as a woodblock in ink and colors on paper. For multicolor printing Harunobu cut a separate block for each color. Precise lines and flatly applied color gradations attest to the high craftsmanship of color printing in that era.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)