The Jewel River of Plovers, a Famous Place in Mutsu Province, from the series Six Jewel Rivers (Mu Tamagawa: Chidori no Tamagawa, Mutsu meisho)
Original title: “The Jewel River of Plovers, a Famous Place in Mutsu Province,” from the series Six Jewel Rivers (Mu Tamagawa: Chidori no Tamagawa, Mutsu meisho)
kurzbeschreibung
Suzuki Harunobu, probably 1766: a colour woodblock print from the series Six Jewel Rivers, showing an adult and a child on the bank of the Chidori no Tamagawa in Mutsu Province. Behind the figures lie the river, bamboo and birds.
Description
An adult and a child stand on a sandy bank in the foreground. The adult's kimono is held by a wide, striped obi, and she wears a large white hat; the child holds a small object. A river with suggested wave lines runs behind them, bamboo clumps accompanying the bank on the left. Hills and trees close off the space, and several birds fly over the water. A field of Japanese characters sits at the upper left.
Context
This full-colour print by Harunobu dates from around 1766, the time of the nishiki-e's rise. The series Six Jewel Rivers takes up famous rivers of Japan revered in poetry as tamagawa. The northern province of Mutsu was considered a landscape of its own character, and its plovers entered the print as a poetic motif.
Impact
The calm, almost symmetrical arrangement leads from the pair of figures across the water into the landscape, leaving a quiet, idyllic impression. Earthy tones with orange and brown accents stay restrained and bring the closeness to nature to the fore.
Technique
Printing ink was applied to paper coloured in several tones. Harunobu works with fine lines and clearly bounded areas of colour, as was usual in eighteenth-century Japanese printmaking. The paper measures 27.6 × 20.3 cm, the common chūban format.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)