No. 60 c. 1835 - 1838

Utagawa Hiroshige’s No. 60, created with woodblock printmaking, offers a window into nineteenth-century Japan, capturing a scene along the Tokaido Road, the main route connecting Edo, now Tokyo, with Kyoto. This print is more than just a landscape; it's a narrative about travel, labor, and the everyday lives of people in transit. The figures depicted, likely merchants or travelers, embody the working class essential to Japan’s economy. Notice how they're dressed and the goods they carry, signs of their social status and occupation. There’s a quiet dignity in Hiroshige’s depiction of these figures. They’re not romanticized heroes, but ordinary people going about their lives. "It is like the feeling I have, to forget myself in the shadow of the temple, to be at peace with nature, freed from care" said Hiroshige. Consider how Hiroshige’s work both reflected and shaped perceptions of Japanese identity, bridging the gap between the local and the universal, the personal and the political.