Midono

In the meadow in the foreground, tall grass bends all together to the right in the wind. Moving through it are a woman with a basket on her head and a child, a person in a broad hat, and a man bent at the waist. On the hill at right a stone-stepped path climbs to a torii gate and red and white plum blossoms at the top.

The grass is drawn by overlapping fine lines of yellow and green, so the direction of the wind is clearly conveyed. The indigo gradation of the sky, the green of the hill, and the red of the plum blossoms harmonize brightly, and the gray mountains at left rear give the picture depth.

Midono was a post town along the Kiso River, which in the Edo period bustled alongside Tsumago. Its name is said to derive from the medieval residence of the Kiso clan, called a "gooden (midono)." A record of 1843 (Tenpo 14) gives about 77 houses and 32 inns, making it a post town with many inns. It is also where Princess Kazunomiya stayed on her way down to Edo.

This is by Hiroshige, and its title writes the name with different characters. Depicting not the post town itself but a nearby hill and meadow, it is thought to have chosen the simple scenery of the Kiso Road. The figures advancing against the wind also express the strength of a spring storm.