Shinobazu

Shinobazu is a sheet from Keisai Eisen's series Toto Funin Benten Horo no Kei (Views of Benten Shrines in the Eastern Capital), a set devoted to the shrines of the goddess Benten - patroness of music, water and prosperity - around Edo. Shinobazu Pond, at the foot of Ueno hill in the northeast of the city, was the most famous of these sites: the small Bentendo on its island in the middle of the pond is still one of the central religious landmarks of the Ueno district. Eisen's design treats the location as both a topographical view and a fashion image. The pond, the island and the bridge to the shrine occupy the middle ground, while in the foreground a beauty or pair of beauties move toward the precinct, their costume and accessories cued to the warm season when Shinobazu was at its most spectacular under its sheet of summer lotus blossoms. The print is preserved in the ukiyo-e.org archive (Eisen Keisai, Toto Funin Benten Horo no Kei, Shinobazu). The sheet is a clear example of how Eisen's mature Edo ukiyo-e merged bijin-ga with the city's sacred geography: religious sites in Edo were also sites of leisure, and a Benten pilgrimage doubled as an outing, a meal at a teahouse and a chance to be seen in one's summer kimono.