Hakone, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)

This Hakone sheet from the so-called Kyoka iri Tokaido (Tokaido with Poem), dated around 1832 and held at the Art Institute of Chicago, belongs to a deluxe variant of Utagawa Hiroshige's coverage of the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō in which each station scene is paired with a comic kyōka poem. Hakone, the tenth station on the highway, was famous and feared in equal measure for the steep, twisting climb over the Hakone pass, and the print accordingly emphasizes the dramatic geology of the route. The composition is dominated by jagged, layered ridges rendered in deep greens, blue-greys, and slate, their angular planes piled across the sheet in a manner that gives the mountains an almost abstract presence. A small procession of travelers, daimyō retinue or otherwise, snakes along a narrow path that picks its way across the slopes, and a glimpse of Lake Ashi—often partially hidden behind the ridges—appears in the middle distance. The poem cartouche in the upper margin grounds the design in literary play, in keeping with the deluxe character of this series. As a landscape print, the Hakone design is one of the iconic statements of Edo ukiyo-e topography: it converts the difficulty of mountain travel into a strikingly designed image, and within the Kyoka iri variant of the Tōkaidō it shows how Hiroshige could rework his own famous compositions for a more literary, connoisseur-oriented audience.