Hanga
Mount Hiei (Hieizan), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi by Kawanabe Kyosai — Japanese Woodblock print

Mount Hiei (Hieizan), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi

by Kawanabe Kyosai

Medium:
Woodblock print
Image courtesy of
Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Description

This meisho-e print from Kyosai's Tôkaidô meisho no uchi series depicts Mount Hiei, the sacred peak northeast of Kyoto that houses the Tendai Buddhist complex of Enryaku-ji. Rising to roughly 848 meters, Hieizan was one of the most spiritually charged landmarks visible from the Tôkaidô corridor and a mandatory reference for any meisho series touching the Kinai region. Kyosai would likely place the mountain in the middle distance, using graduated bokashi to suggest atmospheric recession, while a foreground element — perhaps a procession column referencing the series' alternate title Gyôretsu Tôkaidô — establishes scale and the highway context. The composition draws on the meisho-e tradition established by Hiroshige but filtered through Kyosai's more assertive brushwork sensibility, which carries into his printmaking through emphatic contour lines and saturated color fields printed on washi.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Mount Hiei (Hieizan), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).

Yes — Mount Hiei (Hieizan), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi is part of the Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road series by Kawanabe Kyosai.

Mount Hiei (Hieizan), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi depicts transportation, tōkaidō, and travel scenes.