Sakanoshita—No. 49, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Reisho Tokaido

Sakanoshita, number 49 from Utagawa Hiroshige's Reisho Tokaido of about 1842, depicts one of the most dramatic stretches of the Tokaido road through Suzuka Pass, in Ise Province. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, the print belongs to the variant series whose title characters are inscribed in reisho or clerical script, distinguishing it from Hiroshige's earlier and later Tokaido sets. Sakanoshita lay at the foot of Suzuka, near towering peaks and the celebrated Fudesute-yama, the so-called Brush-Throw Mountain, a landmark long associated with the painter Kano Motonobu and a magnet for travelers' awe. As an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print, Sakanoshita allows Hiroshige to play with vertical scale: jagged peaks rise above the road, scrub and rocky outcrops cluster in the middle distance, and small travelers traverse the highway as miniature figures testifying to the immensity of the terrain. His characteristic bokashi-graded skies and selective use of saturated color render the cool, vertiginous atmosphere of mountain travel. The Reisho Tokaido as a whole emphasizes the meisho or famous scenic features associated with each station rather than the post infrastructure itself, and at Sakanoshita that emphasis served the artist superbly. By directing the viewer's eye upward toward the mountain mass, Hiroshige transforms a station view into a contemplation of natural grandeur. The print exemplifies his ability to vary tone across a serial project, alternating intimate teahouse scenes with vast geographical panoramas, all in support of his enduring identity as the leading landscape designer of the late Edo period.