Visiting Oji Inari Shrine

Visiting Oji Inari Shrine is a Katsushika Hokusai ukiyo-e print of about 1801 in the Art Institute of Chicago. Oji Inari, located on the northern edge of Edo near the slopes of the Asukayama and Takinogawa districts, was one of the most popular suburban shrines in the city, associated with the fox deity Inari and visited especially during the New Year. Hokusai stages the visit as a genre scene: figures in seasonal kimono make their way along the approach, framed by the trees and gateways of the shrine precinct. The work belongs to the broad current of Edo ukiyo-e that took urban pilgrimage and seasonal outings as core subjects, allowing artists to combine landscape, fashion, and ritual in a single sheet. The figures are drawn in the lively, anecdotal manner that Hokusai was simultaneously developing in his sketchbooks, while the spatial recession of the path and trees points toward his later integrated landscapes. As a ukiyo-e print, this scene is also a window onto everyday religious practice in Edo, where shrine visits were as much social occasions as devotional ones. Katsushika Hokusai's restraint in palette and line reflects the kyoka-circle context in which much of his early-1800s work was commissioned. The Art Institute of Chicago impression preserves the delicacy of the original printing, including the gradated blocks used for sky and foliage that frame the worshippers within the suburban landscape.