Hiroshige’s “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido”

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To begin with, I should claim that the creative work of Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) is a fascinating example of shaping the landscapes through the vision of the beauty not only of the Japanese nature but of the artist’s talent to depict the details in different colors and means. It concerns his work “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido.”. His ukiyo-e woodblock print art was of significant interest to European impressionists: Vincent van Gogh, Eduard Manet, Edgar Degas, etc. The description of people’s trip on Tokaido, one of the highest mountains in Japan, tells about the time when isolated from the continental world Japan had such vigorous moments:

These 2 1/2 centuries of peace and prosperity spawned new arts. This was especially true of the ukiyo-e, or “floating world,” woodblock print. Now, at last, the National Gallery of Art celebrates these vibrant and varied arts with “Edo: Art in Japan 1615-1868.” (Journal article by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 1, 1995 1)

The author was born in the family of a member of the Tokyo Fire Brigade which was applied to Edo castle. His father must light all the way to Kyoto to protect the escort from roaming bandits. As I see, the artist always heard in childhood about different cases throughout this road from Edo to Kyoto. Perhaps, there were many stories with the negative outcome or with survival desire of people attached to the Emperor to serve their country. In any case, these prints bear in our minds the author’s interest in describing the pictures of how people wend their way through the difficulties of the road as well as picturesque surroundings and people’s moods from the beginning until the end of the distance.

Ando Hiroshige’s way of life was a sort of “Per aspera ad astra”, he could not enter the school he wanted and in fourteen years Toyohiro gives him an opportunity to improve the talent of an artist. His early art bore a little bit of “decadent” orientation with images of women and their moods under various circumstances. Then there were various attempts to make something individual in his works and in the manner, he felt them:

In the striking qualities of the bold, unconventional compositions and the Occidental overtones, Hiroshige was certainly indebted to Hokusai; but the rare and sustained poetic mood was clearly his own innovation and one which was thereafter always to distinguish his finest work. (Masters of the Japanese Print: Their World and Their Work, Richard Lane; Doubleday, 1962. 272)

In the year 1832, being a stalwart of Utogawa painting school, Ando begins writing new successful series of pictures, which are known for many later generations, and show the view on a specifically emerged road in the nature of Tokaido Highways. The work is called simply but with shades of meaning “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido”. In fact, there are 55 pictures: 53 stations plus two images of the cities of Edo and Kyoto. These prints tend us to think that the artist was standing all day long looking at the lakes, valleys, gorges, trees of the areal diversity of Tokaido. We should mention also that Hiroshige was not alone in the theme of the Tokaido Highway. This area was popular in art and in literature as well:

In literature, the most notable production was Ikku’s famous Hizakurige (“By Foot along the Tokaido”) of 1802- 1809, a novel which related with great wit the ribald adventures of a pair of Edo rascals on a trip to Kyoto.” (Masters of the Japanese Print: Their World and Their Work, Richard Lane; Doubleday, 1962. 273)

The same is about the art of Hokusai, whose innovative manner of displaying landscapes induced many artists of that time to share some techniques in painting. One cannot but remind the teacher of Hiroshige, who also painted beautiful hills, mountains, and precipices of Tokaido.

“The fifty-five prints of the series were first sold separately, but on their completion in 1834 they were issued as an album, complete with preface and colophon.” (Masters of the Japanese Print: Their World and Their Work, Richard Lane; Doubleday, 1962. 276) Thus, it would be more reasonable to analyze all Hiroshige’s prints. Unfortunately, this presents an enormous work with the devotion of a great part of one’s time.

As for me, it was very important to choose station 11 “Hakone”. Its picturesque and vivid print raised several questions in my mind because of its mysteriousness and grotesque execution.

The picture shows the wending of people under the cover of night. They are going up the mountain holding in their hands torches. People on the canvas seem to be the carriers with a burden on their shoulders; also they are without outer clothes. As far as I am concerned, this is a sign of a lower stratum of society. The torch men are soiled with smoke grey clothes. It means that probably they had no time to change it as they were called to maintain an immediate order of somebody from the upper classes. They are lighting the way, full of danger and hardship. They realize the role of their profession, as they hurry to pass along the still growing dusky evening. They look at every one of their cortège, feeling the responsibility to save somehow the lives of the neighbors in walking along the mountain. The last man tends us to think that his life is more interesting and colorful; he carries something of great importance for the previously mentioned people. It is water, as there the transparency of a landscape line can be seen. His role is to meet the requirements in water, for it is an issue of hard efforts to go up. Yis clothes is blue, symbolizing the color of life and spirituality. As his shoulder-yoke is full he feels tired at the very beginning of the distance, that is why, as I see, the last torch man tries to safeguard the waterman’s legs as well as himself against different kinds of injuries by the attempt to illuminate his way.

The burden contains a seat or a sack with something, as I see. In particular, it is not of a great purpose, the guard is absent here. In accordance with the destination of every station, they were the rest stops. Such idea is applied on the print through the figure of an owner, I suppose, of this eleventh station. I mean a man in a cone-like hat and clothes of a traditional manner of dressing. Two trees trail over the powerful and dangerous precipice of Tokaido. They are tired under the weight of darkness, their twigs are overwhelmed and injured. Here are the motives of nature’s hard existence on this road. The trees symbolize the similarity of going on the edge of a razor. It is a matter of life and death. Of course, we can guess about the end of men’s trip, but the hardship of this part of the road to Kyoto bears in my mind the idea of fate in a man’s life, the idea of inescapable destiny of a physically forced to work people.

Their every trip seems to have dangers. Their characters assume a special shape, the shape of ideological training, based on the traditional Japanese philosophy. Not only this but the road impresses me with its red color, the color of love, but not in this context, the color of passion, but there are no women. In my opinion, the intention of the print leads us to martyrdom and the feeling of the uneasy and dangerous road in the hearts of wanderers. They cannot stop, they must reach their destination. Looking at the red color, I see the footsteps of those who did not justify the aims of their trip. It seems as if the author repeats saying: What number of people will suffer after these ones? Or it will happen with them? Needless to say, it does really matter, which way to choose. In any case, we can figure out the courage and fortitude in men on the print. Pay your attention on the fact that the men exactly discharge their duties according to the work they do. They are tired but they keep going through the darkness and unpredictability of night. The main stimuli for them, to my mind, are two, namely: to do their job in time and without any problem and to keep their lives for the families. It was the time when special stress was laid on men in providing their families with food. It regarded only a small plate of rice.

Another thing that impresses much is the tongues of fire. They are red with tints of yellow and brown colors and are turned strictly up. The ends of them are not seen and provide us with a thought of eternity. Fire demonstrates here a perishable nature of every man connected to the Tokaido Highway. These colors characterize that the end of such feats leads to ashes, ashes of men’s lives. There is no differentiation between such wanderers on the print, between their opinions, wishes and statuses. They live their lives and clean the way from Edo to Kyoto and vice versa for next generations. Men are inclined to contend that this challenge is no doubt reachable. Moreover, the men on the print believe that their lives are under the command of the Highest Power and the Buddhism doctrines. With the help of these torches and fire at all they carve they way.

The main property of fire is that it comes through the night and darkness. Darkness has no power to break the light of fire. It can frighten us and make us weak. The darkness, as a sign of problems and failure of hopes. The fire, on other hand, pretends to be of huge power against the darkness and its value is in his both power and insidiousness. We absorb power of light to maintain our existence. The metaphorical meaning of fire is a great will to struggle and to prop somebody else against problems. We feel ourselves good in life when we reach the tops and help to reach them for somebody else, and it is not necessarily about the financial success. It tells us about the inner quality of your soul and “the roots” that help keeping them constant. The insidiousness of fire is in the temptation to move wrong, to leave goodness for evil. There are so many examples to confirm this objective. Still, the artist comes up with a potential danger of such precipitate decisions.

I want also to have some more glimpses on the description of night’s color and its tints. Station is a start, so the unpredictability of further steps on the road is darkened much. Gradual transition from tint to tint symbolizes here the gradual complication of road, along with life, I suppose. A constant struggle for life does not except the obstacles throughout the road. The overwhelming stream of a man’s thought preventing temporally raise problems, because the Hakone pass was most arduous piece of the entire Tokaido Highway, we ought to think that the scene on the print enbodies the hardest times in life. The black line, as we call it. The stretch of disasters and troubles, which provokes anxiety in everybody’s heart.

On this print Hiroshige influences us by the example of life a man lives at that period until present days. The hardship of the road tends us to think about the hardship of the life on the whole. The artist created in a simple manner of the scene and colors diversity the wholeness of objective reality. The overfalls of different parts of the print display a design of author’s emotional experience. The tendency to depict details surpassed the author and left for us many to think about. The vision of trees, as symbols of longevity, the image of the precipice, as a symbol of the fleetingness of life, the tongues of fire, directed up and forward, as symbols of a man’s great wish to compete with nature, and the description of night, as a symbol of Somebody looking down on people struggling for life. The conception of symbols of Ando Hiroshige is great in his ukiyo-e art. All in all, I should also admit an interesting idea of this print. It clarifies the life aim at the surviving: You can surmount the difficulties of life when you have aim (to deliver the burden to the destination), strength (to carry your burden), clarity of mind (when lighting the way you go) and the means to keep you fit (water). This paradigm also signifies the main idea of Hiroshige’s print.

As once Herodotus said: “Everything floats everything changes”. We can suggest that Ando inherited this philosophical idea to implement it not only in his soul, but also in characters, scenes, symbols, in his art at all. His works always contrasted with the contemporary artists at that period. Hiroshige was opinionated in what he was doing on canvas. Logic and proportion as well as aesthetic perception put in his art made him one of the most outstanding and popular artist in Japan and in the world.

Even in the numerous prints that one cannot honestly love, the sense of proportion and the originality of design are always impressive. Among modern Japanese painters and print designers it is common to hear such views as, “Hokusai is the greater; but I love Hiroshige the more”; or, “Hokusai is the greater artist but tires one with his overflowing energy; Hiroshige is the lesser man, but somehow fills one with the greatest delight.” (Encyclopedia of the Essay, Tracy Chevalier; Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997 262)

Like many artists of Western world Ando respected the open-air work. Live nature impacted him every time to show its features in reality but on the prints. He was close to the opinion of a “natural man”. He works out the main reasons, as we see now, of Japanese tremendous desire to survive by all means of reasonable attempts to overcome circumstances and keep harmony in heart.

This work of Hiroshige and others artists of this genre is of great significant meaning for world history of art. Artifacts of Hiroshige’s prints make us disturb a general outlook on Japanese painting. It is he, who introduced ukiyo-e style for the European masters of paint-brush. Within his life he was patriotically inclined in tastes to Edo, though he loved wine. He prospered in doing best of him for the glory of Japan and its heirs. We are to consume the beauty of intention and impression that gives us the artist and ukio-e style. Thus, we can be sure of our dignity and can pretend to be called personals with a sort of our own self-estimation. Ando demonstrated it like no other, he tried to immortalize the incomparable art of his own, but:

With Hiroshige’s death, the traditional ukiyo-e print approached its end, and Kiyochika succeeded but briefly and imperfectly in adapting it to his age. It will be recalled, however, that ukiyo-e had always consisted of two principal mediums, the relatively inexpensive prints (and books), primarily for popular consumption, and the paintings, commissioned by affluent connoisseurs — as well as by wealthy people with a blank wall to cover and a taste for the modern rather than the classical. (Masters of the Japanese Print: Their World and Their Work, Richard Lane; Doubleday, 1962 298-299)

When studying the Art of Japan in class, I felt lost in interpretation of Japanese artists. I had no idea to conclude the importance of their paintings personally for me. Trying to break the ice I began thinking over the aesthetic and psychological aspects of Hiroshige’s prints. I admit that the visual perception of colors in his works make me keep in mind the scenes of people, nature events on the pictures. It excites my soul and spirit great as well as mentally. This mnemonic “sleight-of-hand” was surely made in an unconscious endeavor to emphasize our imagination and create author’s vision of the situation dealing with the Tokaido Highway.

An enormous impulse touched me. Now Hiroshige’s “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido” impelled me to re-think over my lifestyle and to add in it a sort of creativity of mind not to live a dull life.

Works cited

The Edward Burr Van Vleck Collection of Japanese Prints, Elvehjem Museum of Art, Elvehjem Museum of Art, Chazen Museum of Art, 1990.

Art of Japan: wood-block color prints, Carol Finley, Lerner Publications, 1998.

Masters of the Japanese Print: Their World and Their Work, Richard Lane; Doubleday, 1962. 322 pgs.

Culture: Review – My Early Christmas Treat; Utagawa Hiroshige The Moon Reflected Ikon Gallery, Brindle place, Newspaper article; The Birmingham Post (England), 2007.

Riches from a Free-Spirited Era in Japan, Newspaper article by Joanna Shaw-Eagle; The Washington Times, 1998.

Encyclopedia of the Essay, Tracy Chevalier; Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

Journal article by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 1, 1995.

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Hiroshige’s “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido”

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