True Pictures of Famous Places in Tokyo: The Destruction of Hisamatsucho in a Fire that Started in Kanda
by Inoue Yasuji
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
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 destruction of Hisamatsucho in a fire that started in Kanda is depicted here as a contemporary news image, Yasuji recording a specific urban disaster with the same observational precision he brought to his documentation of bridges and parks. Fires in Meiji Tokyo — still largely wooden and densely built — could sweep through neighborhoods with terrifying speed, and the conflagration from Kanda spreading to Hisamatsucho in the Nihonbashi area represents exactly this kind of catastrophic urban fire. Yasuji's print functions as visual journalism, a document of a specific disaster that affected real communities.
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
True Pictures of Famous Places in Tokyo: The Destruction of Hisamatsucho in a Fire that Started in Kanda was created by Inoue Yasuji (井上安治).
True Pictures of Famous Places in Tokyo: The Destruction of Hisamatsucho in a Fire that Started in Kanda depicts urban scenes, set at Tokyo.