Evening Cool at Ryögoku

Catalog note / 解説

Unlike better-known prints portraying idealistic images of fireworks at Ryögoku Bridge by his contemporary Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi here offers a more realistic depiction of Edo commoners’ lives. In this print, people on a pleasure boat buy food from a nearby vendor on another boat. On the right, a group of men are wading in the water. They are religious practitioners hoping to purify themselves by “washing off” this world’s corruption and impurities. There is an implied contrast between these two scenes, since the people on the left seem devoted to mundane pleasures while those on the right contemplate the vanity of the floating world. “Midsummer Night’s Pleasure” 08/05/2010-10/10/2010) ******…