Owari Province: Tenno Festival at Tsushima

In the upper half of the picture, five boats piled thick with round arrangements of lanterns cross the river in a diagonal line. Each boat has a long pole raised above its cabin, with lanterns strung along the pole as well. In the foreground float roofed viewing boats and small sailboats, and a pine tree stands on the bank at lower left.

The river surface is bright blue, and on the far bank green mountains and the houses of the town continue. The sky is clouded gray, suggesting the approach of dusk. The combination of the pink of the festival boats and the blue of the river is splendid, and the arrangement of the boats growing larger from back to front creates the movement of a procession.

The Tsushima Tenno Festival is the summer festival of the Tsushima Gozu Tenno Shrine (now Tsushima Shrine), when boats were floated on the Tenno River for the rituals. The boats decorated with hemispherical lanterns are called makiwara boats, and at the evening festival they cross the river with their lights lit. This picture is thought to show those boats in the evening before the lights are lit.

The series includes several designs that depict festivals, such as Itsukushima in Aki and Izumo Taisha, and this is one of them. It chooses not just famous scenery but an event unique to the place. The impressions at the National Diet Library and the Tokyo National Museum have the same composition.