Utagawa Hiroshige and *Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi* — Lyrical Landscape and the Visualization of Travel

Hiroshige — Another Master of Landscape

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) is a master of late-Edo landscape painting, on a par with Katsushika Hokusai. 37 years younger than Hokusai, he was inspired by Hokusai’s Fugaku Sanjūrokkei (1831-1834), but Hiroshige established an entirely different style of landscape.

• Hokusai — bold, innovative, dynamic, giant waves, thunder, strong wind
• Hiroshige — lyrical, serene, poetic, rain, snow, mist, dusk

Two masters of the same era built “two great styles of landscape painting.” This is a contrast representative of the golden age of ukiyo-e in the 1830s-40s.

Life — From Fireman’s Son to Painter of the Highway

Childhood (1797-1811)

• Born in 1797, at Yatsu-yasu Kagashi (present-day Ōtemachi, Chiyoda-ku), Edo
• Real name Andō Jūemon
• Father Andō Gen’emon was a jōbikeshi dōshin — a low-ranking retainer in the shogunate fire brigade
• 1809, lost his mother
• 1811, lost his father too. At 14 inherited the family headship and became a jōbikeshi dōshin

Hiroshige should have lived his life as a firefighting official. But he showed talent for painting from his early days, and had received instruction in drawing from lower-ranking samurai colleagues.

Utagawa School Entry (1811)

• 1811 (age 15), entered under Utagawa Toyohiro (1774-1830)
• Given the name Utagawa Hiroshige
• The Utagawa school was the largest ukiyo-e school at the time (Toyokuni, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi and others were in it, treated in the next article)

Young Years (1811-1831)

• Painted bijin-ga and actor prints, but not conspicuous
• Continued his side job as jōbikeshi dōshin
• 1823, gave the family headship to his son to concentrate on painting
• 1820s, tried various genres — flower-and-bird painting, warrior prints, etc.

Until his mid-30s, Hiroshige was an inconspicuous ukiyo-e master. The turning point came in 1832.

Turning Point — Kyoto Trip on Shogunate Duty (1832)

In 1832 (Tenpō 3, age 35), Hiroshige joined the shogunate’s hassaku ouma kenjōshi party and had the chance to travel round-trip on the Tōkaidō from Edo to Kyoto.

• The envoy that delivered a horse offering from the shogunate to the court
• Actually traveled the Tōkaidō, passing through 55 post stations
• Hiroshige left many sketches along the road

This became the direct material for the Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi starting the next year in 1833.

Publication of Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi (1833)

• 1833 (Tenpō 4), publication begins from the publisher Hōeidō, Takenouchi Magohachi
• All 55 pictures (Nihonbashi + 53 stations + Kyoto = 55)
• A landscape series in large horizontal ōban format
• An explosive hit — a topic of talk across Edo, going through dozens of editions

With this, Hiroshige established the position of “landscape = Hiroshige.” For the next 25 years, he continued producing highway series.

Middle Period Onward (1834-1858)

• 1834-1842, other versions of Kiso Kaidō Rokujūkyū-tsugi and Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi
• 1856-1858, the Meisho Edo Hyakkei series (representative work of his last years)
• September 6, 1858, died of cholera at 62

Death poem:

Azumaji ni / fude wo nokoshite / tabi no sora / nishi no mikuni no / nadokoro wo min

“Leaving my brush in the East (=Edo), I go to see the famous places of the West (=paradise)” — a death poem befitting Hiroshige, who lived his life as “the painter of the highway.”

Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi — Composition of All 55 Pictures

What Is the Tōkaidō?

• The highway from Edo Nihonbashi → Kyoto Sanjō Ōhashi, about 500 km
• 53 post stations (shukuba-machi) were set up
• Daimyō processions (sankin-kōtai), merchants, pilgrims, and envoys traveled it
• The greatest arterial road of the Edo era

Breakdown of All 55 Pictures

• Nihonbashi (starting point) 1 picture
• The 53 post stations each with 1 picture (=53 pictures)
• Sanjō Ōhashi (arrival in Kyoto) 1 picture
• Total 55 pictures

Subjects of Each Picture

Hiroshige drew each station in “a scene that fits that place”:

• Hakone — the difficult pass crossing
• Kanbara — deep snow
• Shōno — a sudden squall (rainshower)
• Hiratsuka — the highway with Fuji in view
• Yui — the sea view of Satta Pass

Each picture stands on its own as a scene of travel. It is also a record of an era in which the travel culture of the Edo era was blossoming.

Representative Works — Selected from the 55

Nihonbashi (Morning View) (Picture 1)

• Nihonbashi, the starting point of Edo
• A daimyō procession begins to cross in the dawn glow
• Fuji also visible in the distance
• Condenses the elation of “the beginning of the journey”

Kanbara (Yoru no Yuki) — The Peak of Lyricism

• Nighttime snow at Kanbara in Shizuoka
• A village wrapped in white snow, two travelers with umbrellas
• Coloration nearly monochrome, indigo, white, and gray
• The representative work called “Hiroshige of snow”

Kanbara is actually a warm region where snow rarely falls, but Hiroshige drew it as “a snowscape as an idea.” This is not realism but the form of lyricism.

Shōno (Hakuu) — A Single Moment of Motion

• An evening squall at Shōno in Mie
• Three travelers running in rain suddenly begun
• Diagonal rain lines cover the whole picture
• A bamboo grove bends in the wind

Another representative of “Hiroshige of rain.” A technique that conveys the sound of rain and the motion of wind in a still image. In the 20th century, one of the works Van Gogh copied.

Hakone (Kosui-zu)

• Hakone Pass, a hard crossing
• Extremely exaggerated mountains in form
• The blue of Lake Ashi and the green of the mountains
• A daimyō procession runs thin

Different from Hokusai’s mountains, this is conceptual mountain description. It differs from the actual landscape of Hakone, but condenses the image of “a hard mountain crossing.”

Mitsuke (Tenryū-gawa Zu)

• The Tenryū River ferry at Mitsuke, Shizuoka
• River and boat in mist
• White mist, blue water, faint mountain shadow
• One work of “Hiroshige of mist”

Yokkaichi (Miekawa)

• Strong wind at Yokkaichi in Mie
• The comical scene of umbrellas and hats flying away
• Catches a single moment of wind

Hiroshige’s Technique — The Form of Lyricism

1. Expression of Weather and Time of Day

Hiroshige made rain, snow, mist, dusk, moonlit night the subject. This:

• Perspective (hinting depth by poor visibility)
• Visualization of atmosphere (mood)
• Gradations of indigo (Bero-ai)

2. Bokashi-zuri

He boldly employed the printer’s technique “bokashi-zuri” (gradation printing):

• Sky gradation (blue → light blue → white)
• Sea gradation (deep blue → light blue)
• Mountain gradation (blue → gray)

With this, the “texture of atmosphere” can be expressed in prints.

3. Aspect-Ratio Ingenuity

Hiroshige adopted the large horizontal ōban (about 25 × 37 cm). Because it is horizontal:

• Easy to express the spread of the highway
• A visual flow guiding left to right
• Matches the spatial sense of travel

Hokusai’s Fugaku Sanjūrokkei also uses the same format, but the usage differs. Where Hokusai makes the foreground huge and the far small, Hiroshige emphasizes the spread in the horizontal direction.

4. Figures as Small Points

The figures in Hiroshige’s pictures are extremely small. This:

• Landscape is the main; figures are supplements
• Suggests the action of “travelers traveling”
• Doesn’t even draw faces; treats them as crowds, distant figures

This is opposite to Hokusai’s face-distinction. Hiroshige expresses “the smallness of the human within landscape.”

Meisho Edo Hyakkei (1856-1858) — Culmination of Late Years

Twenty-five years after Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi, Hiroshige in his last years produced Meisho Edo Hyakkei (120 pictures in all). A series that depicts the famous places of Edo, one scene per picture.

Representative works:

• Ōhashi Atake no Yūdachi — a sudden shower and the great bridge
• Kameido Ume-yashiki — a great plum branch in the foreground
• Fukagawa Susaki Jūmantsubo — an eagle soaring in the sky, snow scenery below
• Ryōgoku Hanabi — fireworks over the Sumida River

These have radical experimental composition, holding an avant-gardism close to modern graphic design.

Van Gogh and Hiroshige

In the late 19th century, Hiroshige’s pictures gave Van Gogh a direct shock:

Van Gogh’s Copies

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) made oil-painting copies of Hiroshige’s pictures:

1. The Bridge in the Rain (1887) — an oil copy of Hiroshige’s Ōhashi Atake no Yūdachi
2. Japonaiserie: Oiran (1887) — copy of ukiyo-e (though not Hiroshige)
3. Japonaiserie: Plum Blossoms (1887) — an oil copy of Hiroshige’s Kameido Ume-yashiki

Van Gogh writes to his brother Theo:

Japanese art is much happier and more cheerful than what we have now. When we are especially happy, we live more happily like the Japanese in their art.

He even goes this far. The influence of Hiroshige and Hokusai reaches all of Van Gogh’s late oil-painting lines, colors, and compositions.

Influence on the Whole of Impressionism

Beyond Van Gogh:

• Monet’s Water Lilies are influenced by Hiroshige’s water depiction
• Whistler’s night scenes (the mist of London) were inspired by Hiroshige’s mist pictures
• Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster art learns from Hiroshige’s flat composition

Hokusai vs. Hiroshige — Contrasting Masters

Element	Hokusai	Hiroshige
Life	1760-1849	1797-1858
Peak	Past 70	Mid-30s
Style	Bold, dynamic	Lyrical, serene
Weather	Waves, thunder	Rain, snow, mist
Perspective	Foreground enlarged	Horizontal spread
Figures	Face distinctions	Small points
Fuji	Subject	Distant
Publisher	Nishimuraya, Tsuruya	Hōeidō

Two great masters of the same era completely perfected landscape painting in different directions. This decided the range of expression of Japanese landscape painting.

“Highway Culture” and Hiroshige

Late Edo Japan had a travel boom:

• Sankin-kōtai — daimyō processions developed the highways
• Ise pilgrimages, Fuji pilgrimages, Konpira pilgrimages and other religious pilgrimages
• Merchants, samurai, and traveling entertainers passed along
• Jippensha Ikku’s Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige (1802-1809) was a huge hit as a travel-guide-like novel

Hiroshige’s Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi functioned as the visual version of this travel culture. It was a product that combined the preview and souvenir for people actually setting out on a journey and the substitute experience for those unable to go.

Modern Hiroshige

For modern Japanese, Hiroshige is:

• The image Tōkaidō = Hiroshige’s pictures is fixed
• Signs and monuments of Hiroshige’s pictures stand at tourist sites of each post station
• Shizuoka, Kyoto, Kanagawa Prefectures use Hiroshige for tourism promotion
• Frequently appears in JR Tōkai CM and pamphlets
• Also used as a subject of stamps and banknotes

Along with Hokusai’s Kanagawa Oki Namiura, one of the best-known works of Japanese art in the world.

From This Article to the Next

In the age when Hokusai and Hiroshige built the peak of landscape painting, the largest school organizing the Edo ukiyo-e world was the Utagawa school. Hiroshige too was a member of the Utagawa school, but the school’s mainstream lay in actor prints, bijin-ga, and warrior prints. Centered on Utagawa Kunisada and Kuniyoshi, the next article traces the story of the Utagawa school that depicted the social unease, disasters, and wars of late Edo through warrior prints and prints of the strange.