Tozuka

Tozuka, more commonly transliterated as Totsuka, was the fifth post station along the Tokaido road between Edo and Kyoto. This print belongs to or relates to Sekino's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido series, which he produced beginning in the 1960s as a sosaku-hanga response to Hiroshige's nineteenth-century original. Rather than reproducing Edo-period scenery, Sekino traveled the route himself and recorded what he found — contemporary buildings, modern roads, surviving landmarks — through the medium of mokuhanga. The composition likely uses flat color areas and strong outlines characteristic of his mature style, with woodgrain texture preserved in the larger color blocks. By updating Hiroshige's series, Sekino positioned the Tokaido as a continuous historical corridor rather than a closed Edo subject, demonstrating the sosaku-hanga claim that the woodblock tradition could be carried forward by a single artist working in modern Japan.