View of Mount Asama from Oiwake Station

The reddish triangular mass of Mount Asama occupies the upper right of the picture. Pines grow sparsely on the middle-ground slope, and in the grassy foreground a packhorse driver leads a horse piled high with cargo from right to left. At left, men carrying a palanquin hurry along, with a traveler in a broad hat following behind. At the right edge stand bundles of cut rice stalks.

The sky is graded from indigo at the top to a pale pink below. The mountainside is a reddish-brown ground with fine lines carving the ravines, and the deep green of the pines contrasts with the bright yellow-green of the meadow. By setting the great mountain on the diagonal and lining up tiny people and horses, the artist creates the depth of the highland.

Oiwake was the post town where the Nakasendo and the Hokkoku Kaido diverged, and it bustled with the processions of daimyo such as the Kaga domain and with pilgrims bound for Zenkoji. Mount Asama, an active volcano rising to the north of the town, was probably a mountain always in sight for travelers there.

This is one of the designs by Keisai Eisen, who handled the first half of the series, and the impression at the Tokyo National Museum bears no signature. Mount Asama also appears far in the distance in the Urawa print of this series, but here it is the main subject, drawn large and close.