Crossing the Sumida River by Night: An Early Masterpiece by Toyohara Kunichika | 隅田川夜渉シ之図

Toyohara Kunichika (豊原国周) would become the greatest actor-print designer of the Meiji era, but his career began in the world of beauty prints. This large-format triptych, made in 1855 when the artist was still in his early twenties, is an early masterpiece in which the influence of his teacher Utagawa Kunisada, the third Utagawa Toyokuni, is fully present in the graceful, polished figures.

The scene is a summer night on the Sumida River. Under a brilliant full moon, stylish women board a great ferryboat for a crossing or a night of cool air on the water. A woman stands at the center holding a lantern that, as a playful touch, bears the characters for Arakawa, the artist's original family name. At the bow, another woman turns to look up at the night sky in a supple pose of great beauty, while at the stern a boatman grips his pole and drives the boat forward, giving the whole sheet its sense of motion.

The background is a study in atmosphere: the still water of the night river, sailing boats passing in the distance, and the lights of the far shore rendered in beautiful indigo gradients. The print is held today in the collections of the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Seeing the young Kunichika at work is a rare pleasure: before the bold lines and fierce gazes of his actor portraits, he was already a designer of considerable delicacy, capable of a full moon, a lantern, and a night on the river rendered with the refinement of the best Utagawa tradition.