FAQ
23. Chiyogaike Pond, Meguro (7th Month, 1856)
30.1478.23
Chiyogaike Pond, located on a bluff overlooking the valley of the Meguro River in suburban Edo, was named after a medieval warrior's wife who drowned herself in the pond on hearing of her husband's death in battle. The depiction of reflections in the pond—the cherry trees to the left mirrored in the water in a faint haze of pink—is unusual for Hiroshige. Water reflections were already an artistic convention in Japan in the late seventeenth century, and ensuing Western influences in the eighteenth century made such pictorial effects, together with the comparable use of shadows, familiar to ukiyo-e artists. Still, they used the technique sparingly.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum