Hara 1906

This woodblock print was made by Utagawa Hiroshige, likely in the 1830s, and it’s part of a series illustrating the 53 stations along the Tōkaidō Road. This series served a booming tourist industry, and Hiroshige was catering to a new audience for art: ordinary Japanese citizens with enough disposable income to travel and buy souvenirs. The Tōkaidō Road connected Kyoto, the imperial capital, with Edo, the shogunal capital. With the rise of the merchant class and a long period of peace under the Tokugawa Shogunate, more people than ever were traveling for business and pleasure along this route. Artists like Hiroshige played a key role in shaping the image of Japan for both domestic and international audiences. As a historian, I’m interested in how these prints reflect and shape the social and economic changes of the time. By studying travel guides, diaries, and other historical documents, we can better understand the world that Hiroshige depicted and the role that art played in it.