Toward the end of his life, Utagawa Hiroshige, one of the most prolific and gifted ukiyo-e landscapists of the late Edo period, produced a set of woodblock prints entitled One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (today Tokyo). In this immensely popular series, he conveyed a vivid vision of nature and man through his depictions of daily life in Edo that included famous sites, annual festivals, and seasonal spectaculars.

The large carp banner that dominates this scene indicates celebration of the Boys Day Festival, held on the fifth day of the fifth month. Carp banners refer to a Chinese legend that the strongest, most determined fish transforms into a dragon when it leaps the falls at the head of the Yangtze river, and the carp became a symbol of a boys’ ambition to succeed. From this high vantage point Hiroshige presents a view of the samurai area of the capital, a densely populated grayish expanse across the Kando River dotted with various military banners, some with the image of Shoki the Demon Queller, another symbol of the festival. The scene calls attention to the class divisions of Edo period society. Carp banners were used by chonin, or “townspeople,” the lower class of merchants and artisans, who were not permitted to fly the military banners associated with the privileged class of samurai.