四ツ橋

About this print

This woodblock print shows Yotsubashi in Osaka. It is one sheet from the series Naniwa Hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Naniwa, an old name for Osaka), drawn by three artists, Utagawa Kunikazu, Satonoya Yoshitaki, and Nansuitei Yoshiyuki, and published by Ishiwa at the end of the Edo period. The view of Yotsubashi is said to be by Yoshitaki. The dates of the series are uncertain, and the record gives no year for this sheet.

Yotsubashi, "Four Bridges," was the name for four bridges arranged in a square where the Nagahori River and the Nishi-Yokobori River, both canals, crossed at right angles. They are said to have been built around 1622, when the Nagahori River was dug, and in the Edo period they were a popular spot for enjoying the cool of summer evenings and viewing the moon. A well-known haiku by Konishi Raizan goes "Suzushisa ni yotsubashi wo yotsu watarikeri" (For the cool of it, I crossed the Four Bridges, all four).

The Nishi-Yokobori River was filled in in 1964 and the Nagahori River in 1970, and the bridges disappeared. Today the name lives on in an intersection and a subway station, and a monument and a stone carved with the haiku stand on the site.

Glossary