Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)
Suzuki Harunobu Japanese
Not on view
Sugoroku, still current, is played with counters and a single die; the board game involves a race to the finish. The woman at the right is about to throw the die as the other makes her "move" on the board. Whoever reaches the goal first is the winner. Despite the cold weather, the shoji are drawn back to reveal Mount Matsuchi, a site in Edo famous for its snowy vistas. The well-structured landscape seems almost like a painting. In the middle ground snow-covered cottages and moored boats are arranged behind trees that are cut off in the foreground by the window frame. On top of the distant cliff at the left stands the famous temple Shōtengu, dedicated to the popular cult for the Esoteric Buddhist deity Kankiten (in Sanskrit, Nandikeshvara). On the right, a bridge crosses a river, probably the Asakusa River in Edo.
The poem written at the top, inside a cloud-shaped cartouche, reads:
White snow is piled along the road on Matsuchi Hill.
Every tree seems to be blossoming in the twilight.
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