Aoigaoka Falls in the Eastern Capital (Toto Aoigaoka no taki), from the series "A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku taki meguri)"

Aoigaoka Falls in the Eastern Capital is one of the more unexpected designs in Katsushika Hokusai's A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces, made around 1825. While other prints in the series celebrate dramatic mountain falls, Aoigaoka turns its attention to a quieter, man-made cascade just outside Edo Castle at the Aoi-zaka slope. Hokusai depicts the modest fall as a tidy ribbon of water tumbling between dressed stone walls, with townspeople and porters passing along the road above and beside it. The composition emphasizes the contrast between architectural geometry, the orderly retaining walls, and the natural element of water, showing how the city has integrated even small falls into its civic infrastructure. The imported Prussian blue pigment dominates both sky and water, providing the tonal scaffolding shared by the Shokoku taki meguri series. As an ukiyo-e print, the design exemplifies how Katsushika Hokusai broadened the waterfall subject beyond rural cliffs to include urban, infrastructural sites within Edo itself, asserting the city's place in the Edo ukiyo-e meisho-e tradition. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression and documents its place within the Tour of Waterfalls series, where Hokusai's wide-ranging curiosity about water and human geography is on full display.