Fireworks at Ryogoku

Ryogoku Bridge spans the lower part of the picture diagonally from left to right, its deck packed with spectators. Pleasure boats and small craft crowd the water, and a large boat with lanterns lit can also be seen. Most of the upper picture is night sky, with the thin trail of a rising firework and sparks bursting at the upper right.

The bold composition gives much of the picture to a grayish night sky, and the fireworks are rendered with nothing but fine white lines and dots. The contrast between the dark sky and the bright blue river heightens the nighttime scene, and the distant townscape is drawn as if veiled in firework smoke. It can be said that the real subject is not the fireworks themselves but the mood of the night town looking up at them.

The fireworks of the Ryogoku river opening are said to have begun in the 18th year of Kyoho (1733), when they were set off at a water-god rite to console the dead of famine and epidemic. The area around Ryogoku Bridge, lined with entertainment tents and teahouses, was the liveliest amusement district in Edo, and great crowds gathered there on firework nights.

Although fireworks are a summer subject, the print is placed in the autumn section of the series. Its censor's seal gives August 1858 (Ansei 5), the month before the first Hiroshige died. With its large expanse of night sky, it is one of the best-known prints in the series.