True Scene of Imagire at Maisaka

At the lower left, stakes stand in rows in the water. According to the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, these are breakwater stakes built by the shogunate to protect the ferries from the rough waves of Enshu Sea. In the right foreground a large sail divides the picture vertically, with young pines lined up in front of it. The sail is painted flat white, and thin ropes run diagonally across it, forming a large plane at the right edge of the picture.

Lake Hamana was originally a lake separated from the sea by a sandbar, but a great earthquake in the Muromachi period broke the bar and connected it to the sea. The breach was called Imagire (Newly Cut), and the Imagire ferry connecting Maisaka with Arai on the opposite shore plied across it. Several small boats float on the lake, suggesting ferries going back and forth. In the middle of the lake, a low shore with a row of houses can be faintly seen.

At the center, a blackish mountain is drawn rising from the water, and at its back right a small snow-capped Mount Fuji can be seen. Layering three strata, the stakes and sail in front, the mountain in the middle, and distant Fuji, creates depth. The next print, Arai, shows this crossing from on board a boat, and viewing the two in succession lets one trace the Imagire ferry. The sky moves from pale yellow to light crimson, setting off the black of the mountain and the indigo of the lake.