Naruto Whirlpool

Naruto Whirlpool, Awa Province is a color woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige from his series Views of Famous Places in the Sixty-Odd Provinces (Rokujūyoshū meisho zue). It depicts the violent tidal whirlpools of the Naruto Strait, where water churns over rocks near the shore between Awaji Island and Awa Province. Hiroshige uses a vertical ōban format to set a dramatic foreground of swirling blue-and-white water against a distant horizon, heightening the sense of depth and motion. The design is often singled out as one of the most striking in the series for its near-abstract treatment of the surging sea. The print belongs to a series of sixty-nine sheets, one for each province of Edo-period Japan plus additional views, published in the mid-1850s. This impression is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.