The Plum Garden at Kameido Shrine
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About The Plum Garden at Kameido Shrine
You have arrived at the plum garden—but a tree is standing in your way.
Its dark trunk is so close that it cuts through the entire picture. Instead of stepping back, Hiroshige invites us to peek around it. Beyond the branches, the garden opens in layers: pale blossoms, a fence, tiny visitors, and a glowing red sky.
This is not the tidy view of someone standing at the best sightseeing spot. It feels more like a child slipping between trees and discovering a scene that was already happening. The giant trunk makes the people look even smaller and pushes the rest of the garden deep into the paper.
Hiroshige included this print in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. His “famous view” is partly hidden, and that is exactly what makes it feel found. We do not see the garden all at once; we enter it through a gap.
Artwork details
- Artist
- Utagawa Hiroshige
- Date
- 1857
- Medium
- Color woodblock print on paper
- Dimensions
- 36.4 × 24.4 cm
- Collection
- Rijksmuseum
- Accession number
- RP-P-1956-743
