View of the Coast

This is a coastal view from a high point. Beyond a quiet inlet, a headland covered in a thicket of trees sticks out and the side facing the sea forms a sheer cliff. The tall tree on the right and the rising ground on the left provide the picture with a kind of frame. This is a compositional method identifiable in Western landscapes from Claude Lorrain onwards. There are two women standing in the front right. The fact that they are wearing kimono tells us that this is a scene in Japan. The view is considered to be one of Honmoku Juniten in Yokohama. Wirgman, who painted this, was active in Japan in the closing days of the Tokugawa shogunate as a reporter of the British newspaper The Illustrated London News. He taught Western painting to Takahashi Yuichi and others.