Ehon Sumidagawa ryōgan ichiran 絵本隅田川両岸一覧

FSC-GR-780.230.1–3

Commentary by Ann Yonemura

Posted November 2014

Ehon Sumidagawa ryōgan ichiran, a book of undated poetry published in three volumes in 1806, is a remarkable work that fully expresses Hokusai’s originality and mastery of book illustration. Beneath the poems that appear in the open space in the upper part of the landscapes, Hokusai’s full color illustrations create a continuous panorama with the Sumida River (Sumidagawa) flowing horizontally between scenes on the near and far banks. In sequence, the three volumes of eight scenes each begin along Edo Bay and proceed up the river to end at the Yoshiwara. The journey along the banks is marked by bridges (including Ōhashi, Ryōgokubashi, and Ōkawabashi); temples and shrines (including Asakusadera [Sensōji] and Inari); and sites of commerce, entertainment, and scenic views. The river winds through pastoral scenes, small villages, and the densely crowded, bustling neighborhoods at the heart of the thriving metropolis of Edo.

Adapting compositional principles that had been used by handscroll painters since the thirteenth century, Hokusai abandoned the spatial restrictions of the single- or double-page spread. The idea of continuing a scene from one page to the next was a novel design feature and must have drawn great interest from book aficionados at the time. Each turn of the page, like the unrolling of a handscroll, introduced new scenes, near and distant, into view and prompted recollections—real or imagined—of the sites along the Sumida River.

Hokusai also exploited the dynamic effect of varying viewpoints, similar to a zoom or pan shot with a modern camera. This, too, was a technique developed in the narrative handscroll, which, because of the rolled format, offered virtually unlimited and continuous latitude in which to express action or passage through time and space. Like many landscape scrolls and screen paintings, the Sumidagawa illustrations create both an imaginary journey along the riverbank and also the passage through the four seasons, from spring to winter.

This work is a confident expression of Hokusai’s sophisticated understanding of formats other than single prints and printed books. The illustrations also reflect his developing virtuosity in figure and landscape representation. In these volumes, he began to develop key ideas and imagery that reemerged in new contexts in his later prints and paintings.

Selected reading:

Jack Hillier, The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration (London: Sotheby Parke-Bernet Publications; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 60–63.

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, vol. 1 (New York: Sotheby’s Publication, 1987), pp. 501–505.

Jack Hillier and Lawrence Smith, Japanese Prints: 300 Years of Albums and Books (London: British Museum Publications, 1980), p. 115.

Toda Kenji, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (1931; repr., Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2005), p. 243.

Copies in other collections:

Art Institute of Chicago, Ryerson Collection

Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden (1-4654)