Shinobazu Pond at Ueno (Ueno Shinobazu no ike), from the series "Famous Places in Edo (Edo meisho)"

Shinobazu Pond, at the foot of Ueno Hill in northern Edo, was one of the most beloved scenic spots in the city. A small island in the pond carried a hall dedicated to Benten, the goddess of music and good fortune, while the surrounding waters supported large stands of lotus that bloomed in late summer to spectacular effect. In this 1852 landscape print from Utagawa Hiroshige's series Famous Places in Edo (Edo meisho), the artist places the pond, its island, and the wooded slopes of Ueno into a single horizontal composition. The Edo meisho series, one of several sets the artist devoted to the city, gathered such recognized scenic spots into a coherent Edo geography for an audience that often visited the same locations on holidays and festival days. As an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print, the sheet uses careful bokashi gradations in water and sky, modest figures of strollers and worshippers, and the silhouette of the Benten Hall to give the pond both its religious and recreational identity. The Art Institute of Chicago's impression preserves the cool palette and crisp registration valued in good early issues. The view is documentary in a useful sense: Shinobazu Pond survives today as part of Ueno Park, and Hiroshige's image is one of many that fix its mid-nineteenth-century appearance and the central role it played in Edo's seasonal calendar.