Amida Falls

Start with the circular opening

Look first at the blue bands inside the opening. They change direction and widen as they cross the rounded shape. Then follow the water towards the pale neck at its bottom. The surrounding dark rock makes the opening easy to find, while the narrow outlet leads into a much longer descent.

The British Museum’s description gives a useful starting point: water courses through a circular gap and tumbles down a steep ravine. It names what the design shows without assigning a symbolic meaning to the circle. A visitor can examine that shape closely without needing to treat it as a religious diagram or a sign with a single fixed meaning. ^[3]

Try looking away from the opening and returning to it. Does the round shape seem to hold the water still, even though its lines suggest movement?

Follow the fall down the sheet

The falling water occupies a different kind of space. Pale channels run down through long blue bands, with dark rock on either side. Near the top, the rounded pool lets the eye move across the image. Below it, the elongated cascade draws attention downwards. Follow one narrow line all the way to the lower edge, then compare that route with the shorter curves above.

The print reproduced here is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s impression JP2928. The Met describes its medium as woodblock printing in ink and colour on paper and gives the image dimensions as 37.5 × 26 cm. The catalogue dates this impression to about 1832. ^[1]

The tall format gives the waterfall room to descend. Its lower end reaches the image’s edge, where the visible scene stops. This lets the viewer follow the fall further than any one figure could occupy in the picture.

Find the figures on the ledge

The three figures occupy a much smaller space to the left of the cascade. A mat and containers sit among them, with a small arrangement of poles near the ledge’s edge. Begin by finding their heads, then notice how far the water continues below their level. Compare their scale with the fall.

The Smithsonian describes three figures sitting nearby, while the British Museum concentrates on the waterfall and ravine. ^[3][5]

Now compare the rounded ledge supporting the figures with the circular opening above. Each offers a compact shape beside a much longer drop.

One design, several museum impressions

An impression is an individual printed object. The Met holds another Amida Falls, JP1085, whose catalogue gives image dimensions of 36.8 × 25.4 cm and a date of about 1827. JP2928 is catalogued around 1832. The British Museum dates its impression 1937,0710,0.196 to 1833 and records dimensions of 38 × 26 cm, without labelling the measured extent as image or sheet in the consulted record. ^[1][2][3]

These differences should remain visible in a comparison. The catalogue entries do not, by themselves, explain whether the dates reflect different scholarly estimates, printing histories or another reason. They are not enough to establish the order in which these particular sheets were printed.

A further example appears in Chris Uhlenbeck’s introduction to Ukiyo-e: The Art of Japanese Woodblock Prints. Its caption identifies a Hotei collection impression in the Netherlands, dates it around 1831 and names Nishimuraya Yohachi as publisher. The illustration is on printed page 7, with its caption on page 6. It is a separate object, not a photograph of either Met impression. ^[4]

Read the title and signature separately

The British Museum records both the work title, Kisoji no oku Amida-ga-taki, and the series title, Shokoku taki-meguri. In English, these identify the Amida Falls along the far reaches of the Kisokaidō Road and the wider tour of waterfalls. Keeping the work and series titles separate helps distinguish this image from other waterfall designs by Hokusai. ^[1][3]

The same museum record transcribes the signature as Saki no Hokusai Iitsu hitsu and translates it as “the brush of Iitsu, the former Hokusai”, with an introductory “From” supplied in brackets. ^[3]