Spring

The series opens with spring. Scenes 1 though 42 represent the First to the Third Months, which are considered in Japan to be the spring season. Typically, early spring is marked by the festivities celebrated at the New Year, which begins the season. Blossoming plum trees are associated with the middle of spring, signifying the end of the cold season and the beginning of warm weather.

The most popular activity of the season is flower viewing. The word "flower" (hana) is equated with the cherry blossom, emblematic of this season in Japan:

 Cherry flowers,
   the image of
   our fleeting world—
   no sooner have they opened than they begin to fall

Anonymous poem from the Kokinshū (10th century), translated in Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, eds., From the Country of Eight Islands (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1981), p. 117.

This poem reflects the traditional Buddhist concept of ukiyo, or "floating world"—one's transitory existence, or the impermanence of nature. In the Edo period, ukiyo came to mean the superficial pursuit of pleasure and the concern for living for the moment, best defined by the leisure activities of Edo's urban culture.

Once an activity reserved for the elite in Japan, cherry-blossom viewing became a popular activity with a wider audience. As the prints show, many classes of people visited sites known for the spectacle of blossoming cherry trees. There was also a commercial aspect to flower viewing, represented in the restaurants and seasonal open-air cafés that capitalized on the most spectacular views.