Landscape and Legend

Utagawa Hiroshige

Fireworks at Ryōgoku

1858

Color woodblock print, 36 × 24.1 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago

A rocket bursts in a moonless sky above lantern-lit boats and a crowded bridge.

• On late-summer nights, those who could afford it took pleasure boats onto the cool river.
• Published in the year he died, thought to be of cholera.
• Its dying sparks light up the crowd and the far bank.

Image: Art Institute of Chicago open access · CC0