Yet, at Adzuma, loosed from all
Thy mortal bonds, made free to roam,
Methinks thou couldst not break the thral
That held thee to thy human home.
Surely no heaven could harbour thee,
Nor other world of keener bliss,
Who didst with such deep constancy
Worship the loveliness of this.
Moon-flooded throngs in Yedo streets—
Dawn quickened travellers on their road—
Lone ocean-fronting hill retreats—
An Oiran's perilous-sweet abode—
A mighty Buddha by the sea
Where all the wondering pilgrims meet—
Immortal Fuji, changelessly
Watching the world around her feet.
HIROSHIGE: HOMING GEESE AT KATADA—TWILIGHT.
One of the Series "Eight Famous Views of Lake Biwa." Size 9 × 13½. Signed Hiroshige ga.
Plate 52.
HIROSHIGE.
Hiroshige takes rank by unanimous consent as the foremost landscape artist produced by the Ukioye School. His prints, known to every one, have been more greatly admired in Western lands than the prints of any other artist except Hokusai. Hokusai's main concern was with the fundamental architecture of landscape; he outlined the structure of mountains, rocks, rivers, waves, and bridges with a hard and brilliant sharpness; but Hiroshige, less rigid in his treatment, seems chiefly intent upon the more delicate and transitory appearances of cloud and mist, rain and snow, sunrise and dusk, that give to a landscape at each moment so much of its specific character. These atmospheric effects of his are justly famous. Few landscape painters of any race have succeeded in rendering so finely the mood of a scene. No one can be insensible to the delicate peace and sweetness of a twilight like that of [Plate 52], or the vigorous life of wide sea spaces in [Plate 53], or the heavy hush of nightfall over the snow-covered village of [Plate 54]. Even more impressive are the luminous and solemn dusk on the Sumida River ([Plate 55]) and the mystery of the print called "The Bow-Moon" which appears as the [frontispiece].