Futakawa, from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi), also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido), is a landscape print by Utagawa Hiroshige produced around 1832 and held in the Art Institute of Chicago. Futakawa was the thirty-third station of the Tokaido, in present-day Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture, set on a stretch of moorland where the road climbed gently across open scrub between coastal lowlands and hill country. The station's most famous association is with the Saru ga Baba (Monkey's Slope) and with the women who ran roadside teahouses along the heath, an episode Hiroshige immortalised in his Hoeido Futakawa. The Kyoka iri Tokaido version pairs the station with a kyoka verse, situating the design in the witty literary culture that animated much print buying in 1830s Edo. Hiroshige's interest in the meeting of road and broad open landscape made Futakawa a congenial subject, and the flat horizon and modest pines of the moor gave him space to compose travellers, packhorses, and teahouse roofs against a calm sky. The Edo ukiyo-e landscape print thrived on such small set pieces drawn from the everyday rhythm of travel, and Futakawa typifies the way each station's identity was distilled into a single recognisable scene. The Art Institute of Chicago's holdings of Hiroshige's Tokaido include several treatments of Futakawa, and the Kyoka iri version complements the more famous Hoeido design by showing how the same locale could be revisited in a different format and a different mood for a slightly different audience.
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.
Futakawa, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido) was created by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) in c. 1837/42.
Futakawa, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido) depicts landscapes, tōkaidō, and travel scenes.
