Koganei in Musashi Province (Musashi Koganei)

Catalog note / 解説

Hiroshige often emphasized seasonal elements in his prints, in this case, sakura (cherry blossoms), one of the most familiar Japanese symbols of spring. Using a compositional technique characteristic of his later years, Hiroshige greatly exaggerated the size of a single element—the trunk of a cherry tree—in the foreground, and severely cropped it so that the tree extends far beyond both the upper and lower borders. The viewer only catches a glimpse of the main subject, Mount Fuji, which is mostly obscured and just visible through a hole in the trunk. This visual technique seems to have inspired many later foreign photographers and their Japanese counterparts in the port cities of Yokohama,…