The Armor-hanging Pine at Hakkeizaka (Hakkeizaka Yoroikakematsu), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)"

The Armor-hanging Pine at Hakkeizaka, issued in 1856 for One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), centers on a single ancient pine on a wooded slope near Shinagawa, just south of Edo. The tree was associated with the eleventh-century warrior Minamoto no Yoshiie, who, according to legend, hung his armor on its branches to rest during a campaign to the east, and it became one of the named landmarks travelers would point out as they climbed the slope's eight-view rest stop, Hakkeizaka. Utagawa Hiroshige fills almost the entire vertical sheet with the dark, twisted silhouette of the pine, allowing only a narrow slice of bay and tile roofs to glimmer at the lower edge. The dramatic close-up framing of a tree dwarfing the rest of the landscape is a hallmark of the artist's final series and a major step in his contribution to the Edo ukiyo-e landscape print. Two figures rest at the base of the trunk, their small scale converting the pine itself into both ancient witness and a stand-in for the warrior tradition embedded in the site. The Art Institute of Chicago's Buckingham Collection holds this impression among its strong group of One Hundred Famous Views of Edo sheets.