06 May, 2009

Ukiyoe and Asukayama park

Sakura season is long gone. I know it's a little bit too late to post such pictures, but please let me complete my Asukayama series with Ukiyoe featuring Sakura and Asukayama.

I found a very interesting Ukiyoe picture featuring the Asukayama park in Newspaper “Mainichi Shinbun” last month.


There are yomeiri gyouretu(wedding procession) marching in the Asukayama. The full bloomed Sakura trees are drawn in the background. You can see all of the procession members are foxs.

Fox is often recognized as kinds of fairy… oh, I’ve written that on the previous post. Anyway, Asukayama is very close to the Oji-Inari which is very famous for the stories of fox.
This Ukiyoe was drawn by famous Ukiyoe artist Utagawa Hiroshige. You can find some Ukiyoe of Asukayama drawn by him on the net.


"Asukayana, Kitano chouboh (North view)"
National History Museum and Institute, Chiba prefecture.
http://www.chiba-muse.or.jp/NATURAL/special/ukiyoe/spring4.htm

And many other painters have featured Sakura of Asukayama.


"Asukayama Hanami" drawn by Torii Kiyonaga.
http://www.ukiyoe.or.jp/ukisho/uks-05/05-b/024.html


"Shinban Ukie Asukayama no zu" drawn by Gountei Sadahide.
Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History.
http://ch.kanagawa-museum.jp/dm/ukiyoe/gountei/syougai/d_syougai04.html


Asukayama have been really loved by people for an extremely long time.

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