Bitchu Province: Gokei Gorge

On the left and right of the picture, gray rock peaks rise like pillars, with small pines growing on their summits and in cracks. Between them a blue stream comes down toward the viewer in many small falls. On the left bank are two travelers on a path, and on the right bank a small figure can also be seen.

The gray of the rock, the indigo of the stream, and the bright green of the banks are clearly separated, and the mountains behind float against the yellow of the evening sky. Placing rock peaks to left and right like a gate and leading the eye between them to the back is a composition possible only in a tall format. The flowing water is finely cut with white lines, and one almost seems to hear the sound of water falling tier by tier.

Gokei is a granite gorge on the upper reaches of the Makitani River, a tributary of the Takahashi River. In the Edo period it was loved by literati, and on a rock along the gorge are carved the characters "Tenchu" said to have been written in Kyowa 1 (1801) by Takemoto Totoan.

This print is placed after Bizen in the series. Impressions with the same composition are held by the Tokyo National Museum and the National Diet Library. Showing a deep mountain gorge of the Chugoku region through the eccentricity of its rock forms, it is a mountain scene to be placed alongside the print of the cave Kannon in Tajima.