Japanese Print "The Falls at Aoigaoka in the Eastern Capital (Tōto Aoigaoka no taki)" by Katsushika Hokusai
Artist:Katsushika Hokusai
Title:The Falls at Aoigaoka in the Eastern Capital (Tōto Aoigaoka no taki)
Date:about 1833
Details:More information...
Source:Worcester Art Museum
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Description:
Unlike the other seven waterfalls in the series, the one at Aoigaoka was a broad, short ‘urban’ waterfall located near the Toranomon (‘Tiger Gate’), the outer gate of the 'shogun’s' castle in the capital of Edo (present-day Tokyo). This artificial waterfall had been constructed for the release of the overflow of the elongated reservoir Tameike (“storage pond”) into the Outer Moat (Sotobori) of the castle. In Hokusai’s print, the 'Aoigaoka' waterfall beautifies the neighborhood near the castle. The hollyhocks ('aoi') that grew so profusely near the water lent their name to the busy Aoicho, depicted on the left. This street ran up a slope, the Aoizaka, to the top of Aoigaoka, a hill crowned by tall hackberry trees ('enoki'). In the foreground two men with baskets on a yoke, full of shellfish, stop for a much needed rest. The buildings behind the cloud on the lower left and at the top of the hill may have been guard posts. In the mid-1880s, when Tameike Pond was drained, the Aoigaoka Waterfall was no longer needed and the entire area was leveled. The exact place where the waterfall was once located is at the intersection of Sotobori Avenue, southeast of the Japan Patent Office, and Aoizaka, no longer a slope, survives as the street in front of Toranomon Hospital. Both places are now in Akasaka district, Minato Ward, Tokyo.
