Kanaya (Munakata's Prints of the Tokaido Highway No. 25)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- British Museum
- Image courtesy of
- British Museum
Description
Kanaya was the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth station on the Tokaido, positioned on the eastern bank of the Oi River—one of the highway's most difficult crossings, as the river was deliberately left unbridged during the Edo period as a military precaution. Hiroshige depicted the Kanaya station as a steep descent toward the river, a composition defined by diagonal movement and distant mountain silhouettes. Munakata's version, numbered explicitly as No. 25 within his Tokaido series, reinterprets this travel scene through sosaku-hanga principles: handcut, hand-printed, and conceived as personal artistic expression rather than commercial production. His Tokaido series treats the historic highway as a structural scaffold on which to apply his characteristic compressed figuration and bold contour cutting, translating a meisho-e tradition into the vocabulary of the modern creative print movement.
More Prints by Shiko Munakata
Flying Over the Mountains (Yamagoe), from the series "The Tale of the Auklet (Uto Hanga-kan)"
1960
Woodblock print
Bodhisattva Manjusri (Monju bosatsu no saku), from the series Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni (Shaka jûdai deshi), Shôwa period, undated (block carved 1948)
Shôwa period, 1926-1989
Woodblock print
Ragora (Rahula), from the series "Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi)"
1939-68
Woodblock print
Ubari (Upali), from the series "Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi)"
1939 (printed 1955)
Woodblock print
More Travel Scenes Prints
Rain Shower at Shо̄no, from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tо̄kaidо̄ (Tо̄kaidо̄ gojusan tsugi)
1962
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Lake Kugushi in Wakasa Province (Wakasa Kugushiko), from the series Souvenirs of Travel I (Tabi miyage dai isshu)"
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Pacific Ocean, Awa Province (Boshu Taikai), from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series (Tabi miyage dai sanshu)"
Boshu Taikai
1925
Color woodblock print; oban
Gosai Canal in Niigata (Niigata Gosaibori), from the series "Souvenirs of Travel, Second Series (Tabi miyage dai nishu)"
Niigata Gosaibori
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
Featured in Collections
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Frequently Asked Questions
Kanaya (Munakata's Prints of the Tokaido Highway No. 25) was created by Shiko Munakata (棟方志功).
Kanaya (Munakata's Prints of the Tokaido Highway No. 25) depicts travel scenes.