The 54th scene of Utagawa Hiroshige’s “100 Famous View of Edo” is Asakusa River Ookawabata Miyatogawa, the original picture is here.
The three river names in the title of the painting are all different names for the Sumida River. In the Edo period, the river downstream from the Ryogoku area was called the Okawa River, and in the Asakusa neighborhood it was also called the Asakusa River or the Miyatogawa River. Here is a picture of the upstream view from the east end of Ryogoku Bridge on National Route 14 (commonly known as Chiba Kaido), which crosses the river.
I guess it means something like, “I don’t care what you call the river you can see from here, because no matter what you call it, the view of the river is still beautiful.”
Although the Kuramae Bridge was probably depicted in the original picture, in the modern view, only the truss of the Sobu Line railway bridge in the foreground stands out, and the Kuramae Bridge, which is visible from under the bridge girder, looks narrow. The artist, Hiroshige, liked to paint Mt. Tsukuba, which of course cannot be seen from here, and instead, the Tokyo Sky Tree has a strong presence on the left bank of the river.
The large figure in the left foreground of the painting is said to be a Bonten, an ornament to ward off evil spirits, perhaps related to the fact that this area was a place for local residents to take a misogi (purification) bath before setting out on a pilgrimage to Mt. Of course, there was no way to find it conveniently at the site, so I used a pole used for mooring boats, but I am not sure if it would have been better without it.
It was also a little regrettable that there were no boats on the Sumida River on this day.
The location where the photo was taken was at the foot of Ryogoku Bridge, where the riverside view was conveniently arranged, which was a big help. The view from the Yanagi Bridge over the mouth of the Kanda River, which joins the river from the west, looking toward the Ryogoku Bridge, looks like this.
You can see the houseboat in the ↑ photo. This neighborhood is one of several (modern) boathouses clustered in the lower reaches of the Sumida River, and the whole area at the mouth of the Kanda River is a huddle of houseboats and fishing boats.
It would have been a nice touch if only one or two of these boats had been on the river…but let’s not be extravagant.
The “100 Views Spots” of this time
