Precincts of Kameido Tenjin Shrine

From the top of the picture, many clusters of wisteria hang down, and the posts of the trellis stand in the foreground. Beyond them a drum bridge arcs broadly over the pond, with people crossing it. At right a pine-covered bank juts out, teahouses and sightseers line the background, and swallows fly over the pond.

The combination of the pale purple of the wisteria, the deep blue of the pond, and the pale red of the drum bridge is beautiful. Placing the wisteria clusters and posts in front and letting the bridge and pond show through expresses the depth of the precincts. The wisteria clusters are rendered through layered color without outlines, giving the soft feel of the flowers.

Kameido Tenjin Shrine enshrines Sugawara no Michizane, and was famous for its pond and drum bridge modeled on Dazaifu Tenmangu, and known as a wisteria site. In the early-summer wisteria season, many worshippers are said to have come from Edo. Teahouses in the precincts sold local specialty dishes and sweets, and many visitors combined worship with an outing.

This print belongs to the summer section, and its censor's seal dates it to the seventh month of Ansei 3 (1856). Kameido also appears in "Plum Garden at Kameido" in the spring section, and together with that plum print copied by Van Gogh it conveys Kameido's flower sights.