Okazaki, from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- Image courtesy of
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Description
Okazaki was the 38th post town on the Tôkaidô, situated on the Yahagi River in Mikawa Province — birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu and site of the famous Yahagi Bridge, one of the longest wooden bridges in Edo-period Japan. The bridge crossing was a standard compositional subject for Okazaki in meisho-e series, offering the visual drama of a long horizontal span across blue-green river water with the town and castle beyond. Kyosai's treatment within the Gyôretsu Tôkaidô series would likely place a daimyo procession crossing the bridge in the middle distance, exploiting the repetitive geometry of the bridge's piers as a rhythmic element across the picture plane. The Okazaki Castle keep visible in the background provided both geographic orientation and historical weight, anchoring the print's sense of place in the Tokugawa foundation narrative — a resonance Kyosai, working in the early Meiji period, would have treated with characteristic awareness.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Okazaki, from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).
Yes — Okazaki, from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô is part of the Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road series by Kawanabe Kyosai.
Okazaki, from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô depicts transportation, tōkaidō, and travel scenes.