Sumida River (隅田川)

The Sumida River is a tidal river that flows from the Arakawa River system through the eastern part of Tokyo, defining the historic eastern edge of central Edo and emptying into Tokyo Bay near the present Tsukiji and Tsukuda districts. The river is approximately 23.5 kilometers long in its modern channel from its diversion off the Arakawa at Iwabuchi, but the lower tidal stretch through what was historically central Edo is the section most closely associated with Japanese printmaking. The principal bridges across the river within central Edo, including from north to south the Senju Ohashi, Azuma-bashi at Asakusa, Komagata-bashi, Umaya-bashi, Ryogoku-bashi, Shin-Ohashi at Atake, Eitai-bashi, and the more recent Kachidoki-bashi, anchored the geography of the eastern districts and provided the principal subjects of the river-centered meisho-e, with each bridge generating its own distinct iconography and seasonal motifs. The Sumida was the site of major Edo-period seasonal observances including the great summer firework displays at Ryogoku (the Ryogoku Hanabi, which began as a memorial in 1733 for victims of the Kyoho famine and developed into the principal summer entertainment of the city), the cherry blossom viewing along the Mukojima embankment north of Asakusa (planted with cherries by the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune in the 1720s), and the autumn moon viewing at multiple river locations. The riverboats that plied the Sumida between Asakusa and the Yoshiwara along the Nihon-zutsumi embankment provided the principal transport to the licensed quarter and figured as a recurrent motif in bijin-e and meisho prints. For Japanese printmaking the Sumida figures throughout the meisho-e tradition and across the shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga periods. The most celebrated single sheet may be Utagawa Hiroshige's Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake (Ohashi atake no yudachi), from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856-1858), in which figures crossing the wooden bridge are caught in a vertical curtain of rain, with the river and the opposite shore visible through the rainfall and the dark gray of the storm overhead. The print became one of the most reproduced of Hiroshige's late designs and was famously copied by Vincent van Gogh in 1887 in his Bridge in the Rain (After Hiroshige) oil painting, now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Other Sumida sheets in Hiroshige's series include views of the Mukojima cherry-blossom embankment, the great fireworks at Ryogoku, the Komagata-bashi bridge, the Suijin Shrine on the Mukojima, and the seasonal phenomena at multiple bridges. Hokusai treated the Sumida in passages of his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and his One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, including the celebrated Sazaido of the Five Hundred Rakan Temple, in which figures on a temple gallery look out across the river toward Mount Fuji. The Meiji-period kaika-e of Kobayashi Kiyochika, who lived along the river in the Honjo district, recorded the modernized embankments and the new iron bridges in some of his most celebrated night and twilight compositions, with the lights of factories and steamships reflecting in the river. The shin-hanga revival returned to the Sumida repeatedly, with Kawase Hasui producing rain and snow views of the bridges and the surrounding river district, and the One Hundred Views of New Tokyo (Shin Tokyo hyakkei) project of 1928-1932 treating the post-earthquake river in multiple compositions. The visual character of the Sumida in prints is built on the curving bridges of varying types from wood-railed Edo construction to Meiji iron and reinforced concrete, the boats and ferries on the water from cargo lighters to pleasure boats, the dense settlement of the riverbank districts, the cherry blossoms of Mukojima in spring and the fireworks at Ryogoku in summer, the autumn moon and migrating waterfowl, and the seasonal phenomena of rain, mist, and snow that the printmakers especially exploited. The river's broad sweep through the eastern city provided one of the principal organizing motifs of Edo and Tokyo cityscape. Contemporary visitors find the Sumida River along its principal Tokyo course from Asakusa south through Ryogoku and the bridges of the eastern district, with the Sumidagawa cruise boats (suijo bus) running between Asakusa, Hama-rikyu Gardens, and Odaiba and the riverside walking paths preserving access to the historical pictorial geography.

Hanga catalogues 20 prints depicting Sumida River (隅田川), by 12 different artists.

Fujimori Shizuo, Hiroshi Yoshida, and Inoue Yasuji are among the 12 artists who depicted Sumida River in our collection.