Utagawa Toyoharu
Mid-Edo Period (18th century)
Donated by the Homma family
This painting’s scenery portrays people crossing a bridge in the cool evening air, with bustling tea houses on either side. Fireworks explode into the starry sky as a multitude of yakatabune boats sway on the Sumida River below. Uki-e is a type of ukiyo-e (“floating world”) art that emphasizes frame depth using linear perspective taken from Western-style painting. This painting uses that linear perspective-based composition to portray both sides of the Sumida River, with Ryōgoku Bridge at the center.
Utagawa Toyoharu (1735-1814) was an ukiyo-e painter from the Mid-Edo period, and the founder of the Utagawa School. First studying under Tsurusawa Tangei of the Kanō School in Kyoto, he subsequently moved to Edo, becoming an ukiyo-e artist. Known for his multiple “uki-e” works employing linear perspective, in his later years he devoted himself to painting fully by hand rather than employing wood block printing. He was also renowned for his paintings of beautiful women. Toyoharu’s style of painting was spread far and wide via his pupils Yoyokuni and Toyohiro, giving birth to the greatest among the schools of ukiyo-e painting – the Utagawa School.