Shionata

At right stands a teahouse with a reed-screen roof, where customers rest seated on benches, and a large tree spreads its branches over it. On the riverbank in the foreground, men with their robes tucked up, a person carrying a pack, and a traveler in a rain cape walk toward the water's edge. At the left bank, several ferry boats are moored.

Beneath a yellow sky that suggests dusk, the river gleams in gradations of indigo and white. The black trees on the far bank and the distant mountains are layered in ink, resonating with the simple colors of the teahouse and figures in the foreground. The diagonally flowing river divides the picture left and right and leads the eye into the distance.

Shionata was a post town on the east bank of the Chikuma River. Because the current is swift, it is said that whenever the bridge was washed away, travelers were carried across by ferry or a temporary bridge. A teahouse facing the river was probably indispensable as a resting place for travelers waiting for the crossing.

This is a design by Utagawa Hiroshige. Hiroshige preferred to depict the rivers and passes travelers encounter rather than the streets of post towns. In this print too, though the title is the name of the post town, he chose the scene of the Chikuma River crossing as his subject.