Akasaka—No. 37, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Reisho Tokaido
- Date:
- c. 1847/52
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Akasaka—No. 37, from Utagawa Hiroshige's Reisho Tokaido (Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido), is a landscape print of around 1842 depicting the thirty-seventh post station on the great Edo-Kyoto highway in what is now Aichi Prefecture. Akasaka was renowned as a lively inn town, famed for its hospitality and especially for the unusual courtyard sotetsu (cycad) trees that grew within the precincts of one of its principal lodgings. Hiroshige depicts the station as a built environment of inns and travelers rather than a panoramic landscape: rooflines, latticework, and a quiet street recede into the middle distance, while figures rest, eat, or attend to their luggage. The Reisho Tokaido takes its name from the formal clerical script used in its title cartouches and tends toward calmer, more architectural views than the earlier Hoeido edition. The Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) print balances small-scale figural incident with carefully observed structures, and its restrained palette and gentle [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients evoke a particular hour and weather. As one of Hiroshige's repeated returns to the Tokaido theme, the Reisho Akasaka demonstrates how he continued to develop the subject in subsequent series, each time reconsidering pacing, composition, and emphasis. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression, useful both as an autonomous landscape print and as a comparison piece against the more famous Hoeido station design of the same town.
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.
Akasaka—No. 37, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Reisho Tokaido was created by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) in c. 1847/52.
Akasaka—No. 37, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Reisho Tokaido depicts landscapes.
