Tōkaidō, the three-hundred-mile travel route with fifty-five stops from Edo (present-day Tokyo) to Kyoto, was a popular subject for Japanese artists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Andō Hiroshige 安藤廣重 (1797–1858) (also known by his artistic school name, Utagawa Hiroshige), one of the most famous Japanese woodblock print artists, made his celebrated series Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō in 1833 after traveling the road and sketching the sites. Because of its popularity, Hiroshige created over twenty editions of the series between 1833 and his death in 1858.

This exhibition showcases selected works on the subject of Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō from the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum, Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology, and the Graphic Arts Collection, Firestone Library. Prints from different editions illustrate the variation in size, format, and composition among more than a thousand Tōkaidō prints Hiroshige designed. The album in the Graphic Arts Collection, Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi, was once owned by Albert Einstein, and is from the Figure Tōkaidō (Jinbutsu Tōkaidō) series, which focuses on the human experience of traveling the Tōkaidō Road. Shōno, a fine impression in the Museum collection from Hiroshige’s first Tōkaidō series, can be contrasted with the accordion-fold book Shōno, a shower from the Marquand Library collection that demonstrates the many steps of making this print.

Inspired by the woodblock prints of Andō Hiroshige, the Kyoto artists Ōtani Sonyu 大谷尊由 (1885–1939) and Iguchi Kashū 井口華秋 (1880–1930) traveled the length of the Tōkaidō in 1919, and collaborated on a series of “modern” paintings of its legendary post stations. Their impressionistic landscapes, entitled Scrolls of the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō gojūsantsugi emaki 東海道五十三次絵巻), were then mounted as a series of eight handscrolls to become part of a tradition of art and literature that had celebrated this three-hundred mile highway for over a century. Recently acquired by Marquand Library, scenes from the handscrolls are juxtaposed with Hiroshige’s prints throughout this site.

Mizushima Niou (1884–1958), a cartoonist and modern print artist, wrote and illustrated a travel diary of a journey along the Tōkaidō road and its Inland Sea extension. This nice book in the collection of Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology is illustrated with line drawings and richly colored woodblock prints.

Repeatedly depicted by artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Tōkaidō Road became a setting for daring and romantic adventures in the Japanese imagination, forming an important part of Japanese popular culture in visual arts, literature, and even daily entertainment.