Religious Festival at Atsuta Shrine in Miya

In the foreground, a group in red happi coats runs leading a horse with a rope, and behind them a group in indigo happi coats gallops with another horse. The two groups run in the same direction as if racing, and the men leaning forward convey the speed. The men's feet stride widely, and some swing sticks overhead.

Miya was the post station at the gate of Atsuta Shrine. According to the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, each year on May 5 a ritual called Uma no To was held, in which nearby villages dedicated horses. This print shows a scene in which people run alongside unsaddled horses wrapped in arakomo (coarsely woven mats) as they send them galloping. The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum takes the red happi coats in the foreground to be of Arimatsu shibori. It is a powerful scene of two groups competing.

Only one side of the pillars of the torii at the right edge enters the picture, and the rest spills out. Not drawing the whole strengthens the movement of people and horses running across the picture. At the back left, bonfires are burning, and people watch from inside houses. The ground is covered with gray gradation, and the colors of the people and horses stand out clearly above it.