View to the North from Asuka Hill

Cherries bloom on the hillside in the foreground, and among the pine trees people sit on red mats, dancing and strolling. Beyond the hill a green plain spreads wide, with rivers and fields faintly visible. Above the horizon Mount Tsukuba rises blue.

The plain and sky occupy the upper half of the picture, and the banquet of people is placed small below to emphasize the breadth of the view. The contrast between the pale green of the plain and the red of the mats in the foreground is vivid.

Asukayama was a blossom-viewing spot where the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, had cherries planted and opened it to commoners. Unlike Ueno hill, sake and song and dance were allowed there, and it was a place where the people of Edo enjoyed blossom viewing as they pleased.

This is the seventeenth print of the Spring section. Together with the following prints of Oji Inari Shrine and the Otonashi River, it lines up the famous places around Oji. The distant Mount Tsukuba is painted several times in the series as a motif indicating the northern direction. The censor's seal dates it to May 1856 (Ansei 3), in the first year of publication. The scene of a blossom-viewing banquet on mats vividly conveys the spring pleasures of the people of Edo.