Tsukudajima from Eitai Bridge, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo 1858

Editor: We are looking at “Tsukudajima from Eitai Bridge, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo” by Utagawa Hiroshige, a woodblock print from 1858. I find the subdued colors and the reflection of light on the water incredibly peaceful, almost dreamlike. How do you interpret this work? Curator: What immediately strikes me is the tension embedded within this seemingly placid scene. Hiroshige created this print toward the end of the Edo period, a time of significant social and political upheaval in Japan as it faced external pressures to open up to the West. How does the inclusion of both traditional Japanese boats *and* the depiction of what would have been cutting edge construction of the Eitai Bridge suggest commentary on a society caught between honoring tradition and the incursion of modernization, Editor? Editor: So, the contrast between the boats and the bridge symbolizes this conflict? The bridge seems almost intrusive, while the boats huddle together. Curator: Precisely. The composition strategically places traditional elements in close proximity, perhaps to suggest that the identity of a nation can only thrive if rooted in past tradition? Think of the ways ukiyo-e prints like this circulated amongst a burgeoning merchant class and consider how prints that pictured both the quotidian *and* progress challenged hierarchical structures and offered new possibilities for thinking about self and the collective during this moment in Japanese history. Editor: That makes sense. It's a landscape, but also a snapshot of a society at a crossroads. I’d been seeing tranquility, and now it is also about broader historical conflicts. Curator: Indeed! Looking closely reveals these tensions. Art encourages dialogue and, from one object, endless and equally interesting points of view can surface.