The photograph, taken from the volcanic plateau of Yashima, presents a sweeping view of the city of Takamatsu across the Seto Inland Sea. Wright frames the view with the spiny boughs of pine trees silhouetted against the expansive sky, a compositional formula that recalls several of the most innovative images in Hiroshige’s print series One Hundred Views of Edo (1858).

A number of Hiroshige’s prints are designed with a greatly enlarged foreground element positioned in front of a distant landscape and outlined against the sky. A highly effective example of this device can be found in Maple Trees at Mama, Tekona Shrine and Linked Bridge. Here tree trunks frame the composition at the right and left, their branches reaching out across the center, while a far-off landscape stretches to the horizon.

Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando)
Maple Trees at Mama, Tekona Shrine and Linked Bridge, No. 94 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,
1857
Woodblock color print