True Pictures of Famous Places in Tokyo: The Burnt Remains of Ryogokubashi Bridge
by Inoue Yasuji
by Inoue Yasuji
$1,000–$8,000. Common views: $1,000–$2,500. Key value factors: Inoue's Meiji-era Tokyo views, influenced by his teacher Kiyochika, have both artistic and historical value. His early death makes works scarce.
The burnt remains of Ryogokubashi Bridge — destroyed in one of the fires that periodically swept through Edo's wooden urban fabric — are documented here with the unflinching directness that characterizes Yasuji's journalistic prints. Fires were a constant feature of Edo and early Meiji urban life, and Yasuji depicted several, treating disaster as part of the city's lived experience rather than a subject to be avoided. The scorched piers and charred timbers of the great Ryogoku bridge in the aftermath of fire make for an arresting composition, the destruction contrasting with the ordinary river life that continued around it.
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
True Pictures of Famous Places in Tokyo: The Burnt Remains of Ryogokubashi Bridge was created by Inoue Yasuji (井上安治).
True Pictures of Famous Places in Tokyo: The Burnt Remains of Ryogokubashi Bridge depicts landscapes and bridges, set at Tokyo.