Toyokawa Bridge at Yoshida

On the right side of the picture, a turret of Yoshida Castle surrounded by wooden scaffolding is drawn large. On the scaffold a plasterer is tending the wall, and at the very top a single worker looks into the distance. The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum takes this figure to be a tobi (scaffolding) worker. A shachi ornament sits on the roof of the turret, and the scaffold timbers, crisscrossing vertically and horizontally, form a fine lattice in the picture.

On the left the Toyokawa River flows broadly, and a long wooden bridge extends beyond the frame. This bridge was called Toyokawa Bridge or Yoshida Ohashi, and the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum introduces it as about 200 meters long. Boats float on the river, and on the far bank a townscape and mountains are faintly visible. In the lower foreground the roof of another turret and a pine branch can be seen, making it clear that this is a view looking down from a high place in the castle.

By placing a large building in front and spreading a distant view beyond it, the difference in size between near and far creates depth. Yoshida was a post station placed in the castle town of Yoshida Castle, and the great bridge over the Toyokawa was the key to traffic between east and west. The top edge of the sky is printed in yellow.