Autumn Leaves and the Togetsu Bridge at Arashiyama in Kyoto

Autumn Leaves and the Togetsu Bridge at Arashiyama in Kyoto is an 1840 landscape print by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858), a major designer of the Edo ukiyo-e tradition who throughout his career produced views of celebrated scenic spots well beyond his Edo home. Arashiyama, on the western edge of Kyoto along the Oi River, was one of the most famous places in Japan for the viewing of autumn maples, a tradition with literary roots reaching back to Heian-period poetry. The Togetsu-kyo, or Moon-Crossing Bridge, spanned the river at the foot of Arashiyama's slopes and gave its name to a celebrated nighttime view in which the moon appears to cross the bridge as it rises. Hiroshige composes the print so that the bridge spans the river horizontally, with the wooded slopes of Arashiyama rising on one bank in the brilliant reds and yellows of autumn foliage. The water below carries small craft, and figures on the bridge provide scale and human interest. As a landscape print, the work places Kyoto within Hiroshige's broader survey of the famous places of Japan, alongside his Edo subjects and his treatments of the Tokaido and Kisokaido roads. The 1840 date situates this work in the productive middle phase of his career, between the early Tokaido series and the later inventory of Edo. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, holds this impression in its substantial collection of Hiroshige prints, where it stands as a representative example of the artist's attention to seasonal color and place-specific landscape.