Untitled Drawing, for the series English Title (Hizakurige kimama dôchû)

Untitled Drawing for the series Hizakurige kimama dochu is a preparatory drawing by Utagawa Hiroshige held by the Art Institute of Chicago. Hizakurige (Shanks's Mare) was the immensely popular comic novel by Jippensha Ikku, first published in 1802, that followed two roguish travellers along the Tokaido and proved a recurring source of subject matter for woodblock print designers throughout the nineteenth century. Kimama dochu is a related travel-themed text in the same comic tradition. Preparatory drawings (shita-e) like this one offer rare insight into the way Hiroshige composed his Edo ukiyo-e landscape print designs: figures and setting are blocked in with brush and ink, with occasional revisions, and the drawing is then transferred to the blockcutter who carves the keyblock from the master image. Hiroshige's drawing here proposes figures along a road, with the casual posture and humorous interaction that the Hizakurige tradition required. The Art Institute of Chicago holds a substantial body of original drawings by Hiroshige, and this sheet belongs to that group. For researchers, the drawing is valuable evidence of process; for collectors it offers a direct contact with the artist's hand that the published print, mediated by blockcutter and printer, cannot quite give.