The 53 stations of the Tokaido were rest areas along a 300-mile-long coastal route from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto. They were originally places where travelers had to present a permit in order to continue their journey. How great it would be to walk in Hiroshige's footsteps & see what the whole stretch is like today.
Hiroshige made his famous series of woodcuts in the 1830s. A later artist, Utagawa Yoshishige, made illustrations based on "potted" landscapes created by his father. Potted landscapes, saikei and bonkei, are made in trays either with miniature rocks, trees, & other vegetation, or with no living materials. "While saikei landscapes feature only scenes of nature, a bonkei can feature people or buildings, with mountains made out of rocks and sculptable materials such as papier-mâché. It seems that these landscapes are the latter," according to the Public Domain Review.
And of course people have tried that walk in recent times. Check out these two links that talk about the road today & have pretty amazing photos (I don't know how to make a link within the text, sorry, you'll have to copy & paste but please do!):
* http://www.lensonjapan.com/historical-tokaido-road-shizuoka/
* http://www.artelino.com/articles/old_tokaido.asp
Hiroshige made his famous series of woodcuts in the 1830s. A later artist, Utagawa Yoshishige, made illustrations based on "potted" landscapes created by his father. Potted landscapes, saikei and bonkei, are made in trays either with miniature rocks, trees, & other vegetation, or with no living materials. "While saikei landscapes feature only scenes of nature, a bonkei can feature people or buildings, with mountains made out of rocks and sculptable materials such as papier-mâché. It seems that these landscapes are the latter," according to the Public Domain Review.
And of course people have tried that walk in recent times. Check out these two links that talk about the road today & have pretty amazing photos (I don't know how to make a link within the text, sorry, you'll have to copy & paste but please do!):
* http://www.lensonjapan.com/historical-tokaido-road-shizuoka/
* http://www.artelino.com/articles/old_tokaido.asp