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

Yokkaichi was the forty-third station on the Tokaido, a port town on Ise Bay and a junction for routes leading toward Ise Shrine. Utagawa Hiroshige's 1832 Kyoka iri version of the station is held by the Art Institute of Chicago (object 4413), one of the sheets from the so-called Tokaido with Poem set in which each design incorporates a small kyoka verse. The composition shows the open coastal landscape characteristic of the area, with travelers moving along the road past stretches of grassy ground and small clusters of buildings. A flat horizon and a low band of blue water suggest the proximity of the bay, while distant headlands soften the right side of the sheet. Compared with Hiroshige's famous Hoeido Tokaido image of Yokkaichi, in which a sudden wind whips a traveler's hat across a wooden bridge, this Kyoka iri version is markedly calmer in mood and focuses on the steady, almost meditative passage along the road. As an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print, the sheet shows how the artist could shift register dramatically while working with the same source material. For collectors, the print is part of an important alternative reading of the Tokaido that pairs landscape with poetry and rewards study alongside the better-known earlier set.