Dusk at Ochanomizu

Ochanomizu is the cutting where the Kanda River runs in a stone-faced gorge through central Tokyo, crossed by Hijiribashi and Ochanomizu Bridges and paralleled by the Chuo and Sobu rail lines. Kasamatsu treats the location at the moment when the sky has darkened to indigo but lights along the embankment and inside the trains are beginning to register. The print uses bokashi from a deep upper sky down toward warmer tones at the horizon, with the river surface catching reflections. Architecture is indicated through silhouette rather than fully described detail. This is one of several Kasamatsu studies of Tokyo at dusk and after dark, a register that connects him to the urban nocturnes of Kobayashi Kiyochika a generation earlier and aligns him with Kawase Hasui's contemporaneous evening views. Kasamatsu's atelier training under Kaburagi Kiyokata had emphasized atmospheric sensitivity even within the bijin-ga subjects he later set aside for landscape.