Backward-viewing Falls, One of the Three Waterfalls (Urami-ga-taki, santaki no sono ikkei), from the series "Famous Scenic Spots in the Mountains of Nikko (Nikkosan meisho no uchi)"
by Keisai Eisen
- Date:
- 1843–1847
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
by Keisai Eisen
Backward-viewing Falls, One of the Three Waterfalls (Urami-ga-taki) is another print from Keisai Eisen's 1843 Famous Scenic Spots in the Mountains of Nikko, held by the Art Institute of Chicago. Urami-ga-taki — the falls one views from behind — was one of the celebrated waterfalls of the Nikko region, named because the path led visitors to a vantage at the back of the cascade where they could look out through the falling water. Eisen depicts the site with the long vertical drop of the falls bisecting the sheet, the surrounding cliffs rendered in dense [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) tones, and small pilgrim figures placed to give scale to the rock formations. The Nikko series builds on the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition that the Kisokaido had helped to codify, applying the same combination of landscape observation and named place identification to a smaller, religiously charged geographical area. The three waterfalls of Nikko — Urami-ga-taki, Kirifuri, and Kegon — were a regular subject for nineteenth-century landscape printmakers, often issued as a [triptych](/glossary/triptych) or as part of a broader series. By the early 1840s, the late Tenpo and early Koka eras, Eisen was producing relatively few new designs as he aged and as the print market shifted, which makes this Nikko series part of his final substantial body of landscape work. The composition's emphasis on the vertical force of falling water echoes Hokusai's earlier waterfall series of the early 1830s, though Eisen's treatment is cooler and more spatially measured than Hokusai's more sculptural designs.
1843/46
Color woodblock print; oban
c. 1840/44
Color woodblock print; oban
c. early 1820s
color woodblock print
Backward-viewing Falls, One of the Three Waterfalls (Urami-ga-taki, santaki no sono ikkei), from the series "Famous Scenic Spots in the Mountains of Nikko (Nikkosan meisho no uchi)" was created by Keisai Eisen (渓斎英泉) in 1843–1847.
Backward-viewing Falls, One of the Three Waterfalls (Urami-ga-taki, santaki no sono ikkei), from the series "Famous Scenic Spots in the Mountains of Nikko (Nikkosan meisho no uchi)" depicts waterfalls and autumn foliage.
