A historic trail through the heart of Japan, as told by two legendary woodblock artists
The Kisokaidō route was established in the early 1600s by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed the installation of staging posts along the arduous passage between Edo and Kyoto. These posts provided essential sustenance and lodging for travelers, and were accompanied by inns, shops, and restaurants. In 1835, the well-known woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works depicting the journey. He produced 24 prints before being replaced by Utagawa Hiroshige, who completed the series of 70 prints in 1838.
Eisen and Hiroshige's expertise as print practitioners is evident in The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaidō, showcasing both artists' unique styles. While Eisen focuses on subtle colors and detailed figurative depictions, Hiroshige's landscapes are grand and evocative, capturing moments along the route such as horse-shoeing and rice winnowing. The Ota River, Wada Pass, and a moonlit path between Yawata and Mochizuki are just a few of the stunning scenes Hiroshige masterfully portrays.
This volume showcases the stunning Sixty-Nine Stations collection, a masterpiece of woodblock practice from 19th-century Japan. With bold compositions and an experimental use of color, it offers a glimpse into a charming, pre-industrialized era. Sourced from a rare first edition, this compact anniversary edition revives the series for modern audiences.
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 - 1858) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and for his vertical-format landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). Subtle use of color was essential in Hiroshige's prints, often printed with multiple impressions in the same area and with extensive use of bokashi (color gradation), both of which were rather labor-intensive techniques.
Rhiannon Paget studied at Tokyo University of the Arts and received her doctorate in Japanese Art History from the University of Sydney, Australia. The curator of Asian art at the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, she has published research on Japanese woodblock prints, textiles, board games, and nihonga.
About the Author
Andreas Marks
Andreas Marks studied East Asian art history at the University of Bonn and obtained his PhD in Japanology from Leiden University with a thesis on 19th-century actor prints. From 2008 to 2013 he was director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, and since 2013 has been the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
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For more than 40 years, Taschen has published high-quality art books. Whether in lavishly produced editions for collectors with nearly limitless budgets, or more compact editions with much more gentle price tags, Taschen never compromises on quality. Watch this video to learn more about how Taschen books are made.
