Sazai Hall of the Five Hundred Rakan Temple

At right the yellow corridor and black roof of the Sazai Hall rise large, with people viewing the scenery from the corridor. On the road below, people walk with parasols, and the roofs of temple buildings can be seen at lower left. In the middle, green fields spread out dotted with pines and cedars, and rows of houses continue in the distance. Small birds fly in the sky.

The pale green fields and sky occupy most of the picture, with the yellow of the corridor and the black of the roof tightening the right side. It is a composition that conveys the breadth of the fields from a high viewpoint looking down.

Gohyaku Rakanji was a temple in Honjo, known for its five hundred rakan statues and its three-story Sazai Hall with a spiral passage. The view from the hall was a famous sight of Edo, and many people are said to have climbed it. The temple is also said to have been damaged in the Ansei earthquake, and this picture is thought to show its state afterward.

This print belongs to the summer section, and its censor's seal dates it to the eighth month of Ansei 4 (1857). Hokusai also depicted Mount Fuji seen from the same hall in "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," but in this print Fuji is not visible and a wide landscape of fields is shown.