Nissaka, Kakegawa, Fukuroi, Mitsuke, and Hamamatsu, from the series "Famous Places on the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, Five Stations (Tokaido gojusan eki goshuku meisho)"

Nissaka, Kakegawa, Fukuroi, Mitsuke, and Hamamatsu, five consecutive stations along the Tokaido in the modern prefectures of Shizuoka, are presented together on a single sheet from Utagawa Kuniyoshi's series Famous Places on the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, Five Stations. Published around 1825 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this version of the series condenses groups of stations rather than devoting a separate sheet to each, producing a compact travel survey that complemented the more expansive Tokaido projects appearing across Edo print publishing. Kuniyoshi organises the composition as a sequence of vignettes, each tied to a recognisable local feature: the steep, root-clinging slope of Sayo-no-Nakayama near Nissaka, the castle town atmosphere of Kakegawa, the rural fields and pilgrim routes around Fukuroi, the busy crossings of Mitsuke, and the open coastal expanse of Hamamatsu, where Lake Hamana lay just beyond. The vignettes are integrated by a continuous landscape band that recalls horizontal handscroll convention. Although Kuniyoshi is more often celebrated for Edo ukiyo-e warrior prints, the series shows him working confidently in the meisho-e idiom that flourished in the Bunsei and early Tenpo eras. Topographical exactness mixes here with a clear love of the human anecdote, with small figures of porters, pilgrims, and palanquin-bearers populating the scene. The sheet also documents the day-to-day rhythm of overland travel between Edo and Kyoto in the late Edo period, when the Tokaido was both an arterial trade route and a stage for tourism, pilgrimage, and literary association.