Ishibei, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)"
- Date:
- c. 1806
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; chuban
Ishibei, from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi), is a small-format ukiyo-e print designed by Katsushika Hokusai around 1801, decades before Hiroshige's celebrated treatment of the same highway. Hokusai's Tokaido was issued as a compact set of station scenes, and the Ishibei sheet condenses one stop on the road between Edo and Kyoto into an economical view of buildings, travelers, and the surrounding topography. The print reflects Hokusai's early interest in capturing place through human incident, with figures arriving, departing, or pausing in ways that suggest the rhythm of post-station life. Color is restrained and outline carries much of the work, in keeping with the modest scale and the print culture of the early nineteenth century, when small Tokaido sets circulated widely among Edo readers curious about the great highway. As an Edo ukiyo-e print, the sheet documents a moment when landscape and travel imagery were beginning to claim space alongside actors and courtesans on the publisher's lists. The impression is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and seen within the full series it illustrates how Katsushika Hokusai had already organized a structural approach to road imagery that he would later refine in his Fuji and waterfall series. For students of ukiyo-e print history, the Ishibei station is a reminder that Hokusai's relationship to the Tokaido predates and informs the better-known landscape designs that followed.
1821
Color woodblock print with metallic pigments; surimono shikishiban
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
c. 1832
Color woodblock print; oban
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Ishibei, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)" was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in c. 1806.
Yes — Ishibei, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)" is part of the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido series by Katsushika Hokusai.
Ishibei, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)" depicts landscapes and tōkaidō.