Okitsu-chô in Suruga Province (Suruga Okitsu-chô), from the series Selected Views of the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô fûkei senshû)

Okitsu-cho was a small post town on the old Tokaido highway where the road passed close to the sea at the base of the Satta Pass in Suruga Province (modern Shizuoka Prefecture). Hasui's print from the Selected Views of the Tokaido Road series almost certainly features the coastal character of the village — fishing boats drawn onto a pebbled shore, low buildings facing the bay, and the possibility of Mount Fuji visible across Suruga Bay to the southwest. The Tokaido series allowed Hasui to revisit the subject matter made iconic by Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations, reinterpreting familiar stopping points through a twentieth-century shin-hanga sensibility. Characteristic of his coastal work, the composition likely balances a wide expanse of water against the horizontal strip of the shore and any atmospheric gradation in the sky achieved through bokashi printing.