Winchester College possesses the print below. Watch this short video to learn about the object. Beneath the video I give a description of it, including a large image, an overview of the series that it forms a part of, and a comparison to an older version.
The above print from 1855 depicts some people fording a river on the route between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto. It was gifted to Winchester College in 2007 by Adam Crick, a former teacher of English. It tells us lots about travel during the Edo Period in Japan.
The design was printed onto paper by woodblock. Learn more about the woodblock printing process through this YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/seseragistudio. The print is 35 centimetres tall and 24 centimetres wide.
The inscription in the red box in the top right reads: 'illustrations of famous places of the 53 stations'; in the white box: 'fording the river at Okitsu'. The gradient-coloured sky and water are particularly notable features, alongside the contrast between the rounded marks of the trees on the mountains and the sharp lines of the people, rocks and buildings.
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858) was a Japanese artist, best known for his series of prints The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido, drawn after the artist's first trip down the Tokaido (the road between Edo and Kyoto) in 1832. It was a series of 55 prints: 53 of the stations (places where travellers could stop off and rest) and 2 of the terminals (Kyoto and Edo).
The original set of landscape prints was so successful that some 30 other sets were made by Hiroshige. This print from the portrait set was made in 1855. Compare the vertical print to the original depicted below.
In it, two sumo wrestlers are being carried across a river: one is on a packhorse; the other in a kago.
Exhibition - Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything: britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/hokusai-great-picture-book-everything
Winchester College – Collections: winchestercollections.co.uk/collection/utagawa-hiroshige
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