Utagawa Hiroshige
1857

The viewer’s eye is drawn to a soaring eagle whose wings seem to embrace the print. This is the print for the sea off the coast of Fukagawa Susaki in the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Mount Tsukuba looms up in the background. The jūman tsubo in the title translates as “100,000 tsubo” (one tsubo = about 3.3 square meters). It indicates land in the Fukagawa district that was reclaimed and transformed into new fields for farming. The land was not suitable for crops, however, and was left idle for a long time. While Hiroshige was alive, it belonged to the Hitotsubashi clan.
The grand depiction of the eagle in the foreground creates the sensation of a look far into the distance. The landscape is basically colored in three shades of blue and white, which make it appear that a heavy snow is falling. The crisp wintry scene echoes the sharp eye of the eagle glancing straight at the lone barrel floating down the river.