Yui: Satta Peak (Yui, Satta mine) is one of the most iconic landscape print designs by Utagawa Hiroshige and a high point of his series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi), also known as the Hoeido Tokaido. Held by the Art Institute of Chicago and dated to about 1828, the sheet depicts the 16th post station on the Tokaido between Edo and Kyoto. Hiroshige shows the cliffside path that crosses Satta Pass, with tiny travelers clinging to a precipice above Suruga Bay and a sweeping panorama opening toward a snow-capped Mount Fuji. The composition is unusual within Edo ukiyo-e for its dramatic verticality: the foreground rocks plunge to a tessellated sea, while the horizon line floats far below the summit of Fuji, encouraging the viewer to feel the dizzying altitude described by Tokaido travel literature of the period. Hiroshige's mastery of bokashi gradients is especially evident in the blue water and the soft white peak. The Hoeido Tokaido series, jointly published by Hoeido and Senkakudo, redefined the landscape print as a serious subject within ukiyo-e and remained in print for decades, making Yui among the most frequently reissued images in Japanese woodblock history. Collectors compare impressions of Satta Peak closely, since early states retain the cleanly carved waves and the precise registration of the climbing figures against the rock. The print also became a touchstone for later Japonisme: nineteenth-century European artists prized exactly this kind of high-angle landscape composition. As cataloged by the Art Institute of Chicago, the sheet stands as a definitive example of Hiroshige's ability to balance topographic accuracy, poetic mood, and adventurous design in a single oban-format Edo ukiyo-e print.
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.
Yui: Satta Peak (Yui, Satta mine), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi)," also known as the Hoeido Tokaido was created by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) in c. 1833/34.
Yui: Satta Peak (Yui, Satta mine), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi)," also known as the Hoeido Tokaido depicts landscapes, tōkaidō, and travel scenes.
