About This Print
This scene depicts a woman jumping off the terrace of Kiyomizu-dera while grasping the Japanese character for life, inochi. She has jumped due to disappointment and despair over an unhappy love affair. Perhaps she has wished for a happier conclusion to her love life before jumping as there was an Edo period tradition holding that if one were to survive jumping from the terrace of Kiyomizu Temple, one's wish would be granted.
234 jumps were recorded in the Edo period and of those, 85.4% survived.1 The expression "to jump off the porch at Kiyomizu" is the Japaneseequivalent of the English expression "to take the plunge."
Kiyomizudera (清水寺; also spelled Kiyomizu-dera; "PureWater Temple") was founded in 780 AD and still functions as a templeassociated with the Hosso sect of Japanese Buddhism.2
1 Sacred Destinations website http://www.sacred-destinations.com/japan/kyoto-kiyomizudera2 Ibid.
About The Series
A comic series consisting of twenty chuban size prints, printed two-up on ten oban size sheets. Each print features the character 命 inochi (life) and presents the viewer with recommendations on how to live a healthy, happy and long life. The top-most print on the sheet bears the series number in its upper margin and the bottom sheet contains the artist's signature and seal, the publisher's seal and the date seal. As in this collection's print, most of the extant prints have been separated from their companion print.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #286 |
| Title or Description | Inochi o kakete omou 命をかけておもふ |
| Series | Reflections on Good and Evil for a Healthy Life 命の養生善悪鏡 Inochi no yōjō zen aku kagami |
| Artist | Utagawa Fusatane (active 1854-1888) |
| Signature | unsigned (bottom print of the uncut oban sheet signed Ōsai Fusatane hitsu) |
| Seal | |
| Publication Date | 1873 |
| Publisher | 辻亀板 Tsujiokaya Kamekichi [Marks: pub. ref. 549] publisher's seal appears on bottom print of uncut sheet |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | good- light overall toning; minor soiling |
| Genre | ukiyo-e (giga) |
| Miscellaneous | Marked with 三 (3) in upper margin |
| Format | chuban |
| H x W Paper | 7 1/4 x 9 3/8 in. (18.4 x 23.8 cm) |
| H x W Image | 6 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. (16.5 x 22.2 cm) |
| Literature | Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's Series Kyōkun zen’aku zukai, Kiyoko Andrea Metzler, University of Vienna, 2017, p. 105-106, 156. |
| Collections This Print |
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