Utagawa Hiroshige
O-ban polychrome print, 25.6 x 38.5cm
1832-1833 (Tempou 3-4)

Hiroshige established the position as a premier landscape artist with the superior compositional ideas and the point of view of this masterpiece, from the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Toukaidou”. Ichi-no-Torii or the First Torii Gate of Enoshima Island situated at Fujisawa Post Station is illustrated with the Yugyouji-temple at its background. The bridge behind the Torii Gate is Daigiri Bridge (present day Yugyouji Bridge). People on the bridge are the pilgrims to Mt. Oyama and people just going through the Torii Gate with the sticks in their hands are the pilgrims to Enoshima Island. This work tells the contemporary viewers that Fujisawa Post Station was alive with tourists and the pilgrims for both sites.

Utagawa Hiroshige
Kansei 9~Ansei 5 (1799~1858)
Hiroshige was a pupil of Utagawa Toyohiro. He also studied varieties of painting styles from Kano school, nan-ga (southern Chinese painting style), and Shijō school. He was active as an ukiyo-e artist from Bunsei 1 to his death (1818~1858). He first produced pictures of beautiful women, Kabuki actors and worriers, but from the Tempō era he was acknowledged as a leading landscape artist. He published many pictures of famous places such as the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido”. Hiroshige’s the other fortes were kachoga (picture of birds and flowers) and animal pictures.

Katsushika Hokusai

The production date: 1804 (Kyouwa 4/ Bunka1)
No Publisher’s seal

Hokusai didn’t produce any O-ban (large) size ukiyo-e print in the series of Fifty-three Station of Toukaidou. He usually produced the horizontal Ko-ban (small) size print. Unlike Utagawa Hiroshige, whose main subjects were the scenery and landscape, Hokusai focused more on the travelers’ outfits and the cultures and the customs of each station, and this gave a distinctive taste to his works. When he started to produce the Toukaidou series, he was commissioned by a group of kyouka poets and produced a surimono, a privately issued luxurious work “Spring Event of the Fifty-three Station” with the kyouka poems printed on the right.

Let’s closely look at the each station. At “Hodogaya”, a man wipes off the dirt from his horse’s feet after it worked at a muddy field, tells the viewers the arrival of the spring. At “Totsuka”, a scene of departure is illustrated. Two men are about to leave an inn and a woman sends off the men rather sadly. At “Fujisawa”, women travelers are heading to Enoshima Island, and they are about to go through the First Torii Gate of the Enoshima Island. The woman walking at the front is holding a cigarette pipe, and a thread of red cloth is tied to it. It was a charm to avoid small pox, which was a most dangerous disease at that time. The guidepost indicates “From now on, the road of Enoshima”, and from the writing on this post “Kyouwa 4 (1804)”, the production date of this series can be identified.
At “Hiratsuka”, the farmers are resting in a tree shade and their tools, such as a mowing sickle and basket are illustrated. The season is the beginning of spring but it seems the air is still chilly. At “Oiso”, there is a man trying to lift a gigantic rock. The word “The Tiger Stone” is inscribed on the Rock. This picture is based on a legend of Tora-gozen, or the Tiger lady from this post station.(Tora-gozen appears on “Soga Monogatari (The Soga Brother’s Story)”, and she was considered to spread this local story nationwide).
At “Odawara”, the Uirou vendor and the distant view of Odawara castle are illustrated. “Uirou” is a name of medicine still distributed today and one of the famous products of Odawara. (Uirou is also name of a sweet as well, but the two are different things.) A Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjurou II who has a disease that caused him a trouble when he said the line on stage with the cough and sputum was cured by Uirou. It was quite a famous story and after he was cured, he made a play “The Uirou Vendor” and acted by himself around the time this picture was produced. A woman on a picture seems to imitate Danjurou.

Utagawa HiroshigeⅡ
1854

At the west side of Kakegawa post station, there was a junction that the approach to the Akiha Shrine was deviated from the Toukaidou. Akiha Shrine was known as the fire prevention shrine and worshipped by many followers during the Edo period.

Utagawa HiroshigeⅡ
1854

Hara post station was the closest station to Mt. Fuji in the Toukaidou Highway. In order to express the magnificence of Mt. Fuji, the peak of the mountain goes beyond the frame of the picture.

Utagawa HiroshigeⅡ
1854

The pole illustrated at the right is the Torii gate of Mishima Taisha Shrine. Situated at the gate of Mishima Taisha Shrine, Mishima post station was flourished with many visitors

Utagawa HiroshigeⅡ
1854
Women travelers proceeding along the Toukaidou Highway are illustrated with the background of the slightly elevated Mt. Koma-yama.

Utagawa HiroshigeⅡ
1854

The snow-scape of Fujisawa post station is illustrated. The parapet of Yugyouji Bridge is illustrated on the back of figures.

Utagawa HiroshigeⅡ
1854

The scene of Osaka (large slope), which is located at the westside of Totsuka post station is illustrated. Osaka was considered as a very difficult trail since the steep slope continued for a while, but it was also known as a good scenic place for viewing Tanzawa Mountains and Mt. Fuji.