Hiroshige's Tokaido Road. April 19, 2018

Copyright © 2018                                      John F. Oyler

April 19, 2018

Horoshige’s Tokaido Road

My enthusiasm about Japanese wood-block prints began in the mid-1950s when I spent sixteen months in Japan, in the service. The genre is unique, and the landscapes by Utagawa Hiroshige are easily my favorite examples of it.

Recently my daughter Elizabeth and I attended a lecture sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania celebrating the opening of a new exhibition of prints from Hiroshige’s most famous series, “Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido”. It is an outstanding example of the ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world).

Dr. Brenda Jordan, the Director of the University of Pittsburgh national coordinating site for the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA) and the Japan Studies Coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies Center, gave an interesting lecture describing the social, economic, and cultural environment in pre-industrial Japan which produced this specialized art form.

During the Edo Period, 1603 to 1868, the most important highway in Japan was the Tokaido Road, linking Kyoto, the imperial capital, and Edo (known today as Tokyo), the shogun’s capital.

Three hundred and nineteen miles long, the trip could be made on foot in a little over a week, providing conditions were perfect. Fifty-three post stations were located along the route, somewhat like the stagecoach inns on early nineteenth century roads in this area, like the Washington Pike.

In 1832 Hiroshige made the trip from Edo to Kyoto as part of an official delegation from the Shogun to the Emperor, recording his impressions of the local scenes with sketches. He then produced the masterpiece that is the focus of this exhibit, fifty-five prints in all.

The prints in this exhibit are from the Hoeido edition, the initial issue. It is the first time the full set has been exhibited in Pittsburgh in twenty-five years. Several scenes are supplemented by prints of the same scene by other wood-block artists; others by versions of the same scene by Hiroshige. Another interesting display showed different prints from the same woodblock, to illustrate the effect of different inking techniques.

The exhibit is full of my personal favorites, beginning with “Nihonbashi” and the travelers beginning their journey in Edo. “Numazu” has a full moon partially hidden by trees. “Kanbara, Night Snow” depicts the muffled silence of a winter night perfectly. “Shono, Travellers Surprised by Sudden Rain” is so vivid one can feel the impact of the deluge. “Ejiri” is a busy harbor with a fleet of square-sailed vessels stretching to the horizon.

Hiroshige’s bridges are appealing; I copied the one in “Okasaki” for the illustration for February in this year’s calendar, and renamed it “Rush Hour” in recognition of the mob of travelers crossing it. The best view of Fuji is on “Satta Peak” with the stylized mountain framed by tiny travelers on a steep road on one side and square-sailed ships on the water on the other side.

“Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido” was wildly successful; twenty thousand sets were eventually printed. Although it brought fame to the artist, it was not accompanied by fortune. A new print sold for about the same price as a pair of straw sandals or a bowl of soup.

The Tokaido Road also served as the main character of a popular comic novel of the early 1800s – “Tokaidochu Hizakurige” (Shank’s Mare) – the adventures of two misadventurers making the pilgrimage from Edo to Kyoto. Hiroshige did some of its illustrations when it was used as a travel guide.

An old board game, based on making the trip on the Tokaido Road was part of the exhibit; it had been illustrated by Hiroshige. Also displayed were two actual woodblocks. Examining them immediately leads the viewer to want to understand the wood-block printing process.

The starting point is the production of a run of prints is the preparation of a preliminary sketch by the artist, probably in color. A block-copyist would then produce a black and white drawing outlining the different areas and highlighting solid lines. This drawing was then pasted onto a block of white mountain cherry wood and used as a pattern for the block carver to gouge away wood, producing a “key block”.

The key block was used to print multiple copies of the outlines and solid lines, one for each color to be printed. These served as patterns for carving individual blocks, perhaps as many as fifteen. Printing was then done in multiple stages, one for each color, with great attention being paid to careful matching.

The development of this technology and the unique genre it produced appears to have been driven by a broad-based culture sensitive to art and demanding a cost-effective way to reproduce it for the masses, in pre-industrial Japan. The rest of the world, and posterity, has benefited greatly as a result.

The exhibit will be at the Museum of Art through July 8, 2018. Investing a couple of hours viewing it will give you an interesting look at life in Japan two centuries ago, as well as providing a very satisfying artistic experience.