1854
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Splendid View at Futamigaura Bay is a 1854 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see three joined prints of a busy bay at dawn. Tiny pilgrims walk along the shore, and two giant rocks tied with a thick rope rise from the water. The rope is a *shimenawa*—a sacred marker in Shinto. It turns ordinary rocks into gods. This spot was where people washed away bad luck before visiting a holy shrine. To see more prints like this, look up Japan, Edo period (1615–1868).
These three prints form a continuous scene of figures visiting Futamigaura Bay near Ise Grand Shrine, one of Japan’s most sacred places. In the background, the sun rises between the “Wedded Rocks” joined by a twisted rope, called a shimenawa , used to designate a sanctified space. The rocks mark the entrance to Futami Okitama Shrine and are said to be embodiments of Izanagi and Izanami, the gods who, according to myth, created Japan. Futamigaura was a place where pilgrims purified themselves before visiting Ise and often lodged afterwards.
The woman at the left has the word Yutaka , one of the artist's seals, on her scarf.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Kuniyoshi grew up in old Tokyo when the city was still called Edo. His dad ran a silk shop, but Kuniyoshi loved anything with pictures—scrolls, screens, comic books. He talked his way into the Utagawa school, a kind of…
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