Evening at Kiyamachi during the Daimonji Festival

Kiyamachi Street, running parallel to the Takase Canal through central Kyoto, transforms on the evening of the Daimonji festival into a vantage point for watching the mountainside bonfires. Suizan sets the scene at dusk as the fires begin to burn, with lanterns along the canal competing against the glow from the distant hillside. The narrow street, lined with restaurants and teahouses, fills the foreground with architectural detail while the bonfire commands the background sky. The Gozan no Okuribi (Five Mountain Send-off Fires) is held each August 16th to bid farewell to ancestral spirits visiting during Obon. Suizan's treatment of this nocturnal festival scene exploits the woodblock medium's strength in rendering artificial light against darkness, using reserves of uninked paper for lantern glow and careful overprinting for the deep blues and blacks of the summer night sky.