Suo Province: The Kintai Bridge at Iwakuni

Across the bottom of the picture, Kintai Bridge crosses in a chain of arcs from lower left to upper right. The central arches are supported by stone-built piers and the two ends by timber-framed legs, and people come and go on the bridge. Small boats float on the river, rows of houses appear among the pine grove on the far bank, and above them green mountains and distant ranges overlap.

The indigo of the river, the gray-blue of the piers, and the reddish brown of the bridge are vivid, and red shading is added to the sky in the distance. The rhythm of the linked arches gives the picture a pleasing movement. The white sandy bank and the green pine grove set off the sequence of the bridge.

Kintai Bridge is a five-span wooden bridge built in Empo 1 (1673) by Kikkawa Hiroyoshi, lord of Iwakuni, as a bridge able to withstand floods. It connected Yokoyama, where the castle stands, with the castle town, and was known from the Edo period as a bridge of unusual form.

This print is placed after Aki in the series. The Art Institute of Chicago does not hold this print, and the image is of an impression held by the Tokyo National Museum. The National Diet Library's impression has the same composition. As a print making the bridge itself its star, it can be compared with the series' first print, the Togetsu Bridge in Yamashiro.