Centuries ago, women who traveled on foot from Edo (now Tokyo) to the Japanese imperial capital of Kyoto along the Tōkaidō Road were in for an adventure. Everyone undertaking this 300-mile trek encountered happy things and melancholy things, strange things and dangerous things.
As a rule, I shy away from extreme tourism. But I’ll break that rule if the guide is Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige. Exploring his ukiyo-e series The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō feels like embarking on a road trip along one of history’s most storied routes.
Volumes have been written about the beauty of Hiroshige’s woodblock prints and the men who pursued the Tōkaidō’s sensual pleasures. So I’m focusing instead on the women—all of the women, not just the courtesans.
First, a little history and a road map
In 1601 the Japanese government set up 53 way stations to aid travelers along the Tōkaidō Road. Over time, each station became surrounded by taverns, tea houses, food stands, and rustic inns.
At regular intervals along this scenic coastal route, officials turned away anyone who lacked the proper credentials. Predictably, women were subjected to a physical examination far more often than men.
Hiroshige’s series of woodblock prints starts in Edo—the artist’s birthplace—and journeys westward. Out of the complete set of 55 prints, I’m highlighting thirteen that represent the array of women you might have seen along the way.
Rise and shine
In Hiroshige’s day, huge wooden gates known as kido enclosed large sections of Edo. The gates opened at 4 a.m., allowing early-bird travelers to reach Shinagawa just as the first rays of morning light streaked across Tokyo Bay.
In his woodblock print Shinagawa; Shoko Detachi, people wait patiently as a feudal warlord’s entourage passes through the village. Across the street, three teahouse maids strike a pose as the samurai walk by. Meanwhile, a man quietly observes the procession from the shadow of a doorway.
Moving further down the road to Kanagawa, the scene becomes more animated. Two maids try to pull travelers into teahouses that offer a panoramic view of the bay. A child stops and stares at the women’s surprisingly aggressive behavior.
Time to unwind
Late in the afternoon, travelers begin searching for overnight lodging in Totsuka, located about twenty-five miles from Edo.
In Totsuka: Fork in the Road at Motomachi, a man gets his foot caught in a stirrup and tumbles from his horse. He narrowly avoids falling into the arms of a pretty maid—much to the chagrin of his female companion and the bemusement of a bystander on the bridge.
Those small boards dangling from the inn’s eaves display the names of tonight’s guests, who will gather after sunset to share stories over cups of warm saké.
I admit it can be challenging to distinguish workers from travelers in Hiroshige’s scenes because he portrayed all of his figures with the same careful attention to detail.
Views of Mount Fuji
The desolate stretch of road near Hara must have felt a bit scary, especially since most women traveled on foot. Wheeled carriages were virtually non-existent in early 19th-century Japan.
In Hara: Mount Fuji in the Morning, two women pause to speak with their porter. Behind them Mount Fuji towers over the stark landscape, rising so high it pierces the picture frame.
For centuries, this active volcano was worshipped as a female deity. Men who reached its summit believed they would experience a spiritual awakening and find true happiness.
In its heydey, the Tōkaidō Road was among the most sophisticated transportation arteries in the world. It was laid deep with gravel and covered with sand, with natural water drainage on both sides.
Several major rivers along the route were left bridge-free to slow down invading troops. Hiroshige captures how these barriers disrupted daily travel. At the Abe River crossing in Fuchū, he depicts women hiring palanquin-bearing porters or piggybacking on the porters themselves.
Yam soup in Mariko
Following their river crossing, women often stopped by Mariko’s popular Chojiya teahouse for a bowl of yam soup, a local specialty immortalized in this haiku by the legendary Edo-period poet Matsuo Bashō:
Young leaves of plum
and at the Mariko way station
a broth of grated yams
In Hiroshige’s print, a tall freestanding sign advertises the soup known as tororo-jiru. Meanwhile, two sparrows twitter away on the roof while a baby naps on the back of a woman who—I just learned—is the great, great, great grandmother of the restaurant’s current owner.
Roughly 130 miles west of Edo, the Tōkaidō Road ascends steeply into the Sayo Mountains. In the print Nissaka: Sayo no Nakayama, five travelers stop to reflect on The Night Weeping Stone—the sole witness to a horrific crime. Even the samurai passing by stops and looks back.
According to legend, mountain bandits murdered a pregnant woman on this spot, splashing her blood on the boulder. A traveling priest, drawn by the stone’s supernatural cries, ran to the scene and delivered the dying woman’s unborn child.
Today, locals say the stone weeps every night for the young mother whose son returned to the mountains and avenged her death.
In the print Kakegawa, it’s Mother Nature—not mountain bandits—who poses a threat. An older woman struggles against a fierce wind as she crosses a trestle bridge. A sudden gust snatches a child’s kite, carrying it high above the wetlands toward Mount Akiba, a famous shrine dedicated to the god of fire.
Hot tea in Futakawa
Before crossing the Toyo River, three traveling musicians stop for a cup of tea in Futakawa. Each woman is carrying a samisen, a three-stringed lute plucked with a bachi.
Behind them lies the Monkey Plateau, a unique landscape of open scrub and stunted trees. To convey its eerie strangeness, Hiroshige masterfully used bokashi—a method of manually wiping ink off woodblocks—to create dreamlike color transitions of ghostly grays and a blue-green wash.
Typically, he used up to twenty different colors to produce a single print. Each hue in his meticulous stamping process required its own block of hand-carved wood.
Akasaka after dark
In Akasaka: Scene at an Inn, the man on the far left returns from a hot bath while, in the dining room, a man with a shaved crown relaxes on the floor. A maid brings him a lavish dinner served across two trays.
On the far right, courtesans apply their makeup. Behind them, a stack of red and blue bedding rolls hint at the evening’s entertainment.
At the time, the Japanese government restricted inns to no more than two courtesans to maintain a degree of control over public morals. The women wore thick face powder formulated with white lead, which, it is my forlorn duty to report, caused many of them to die before the age of twenty.
A beacon in the rain
Further up the road in Tsuchiyama, where the Tōkaidō crosses the Yasu River, a torrential spring rain drenches travelers as they head toward a way station hidden among a cluster of sugi trees.
To depict the weather in this print, Hiroshige initially used white ink. He later switched to black ink because, in his view, white lines evoke the essence of a soft summer rain rather than a heavy spring downpour.
It is autumn in Minakuchi. Three women hang gourd shavings to dry while another slices a ripe calabash gourd. Known as kanpyō, these shavings are traditionally boiled with soy sauce and sugar, then tucked into sushi rolls.
Ten miles to the west is Ōtsu, a tourist hotspot on Japan’s largest lake. In Hiroshige’s depiction of the way station, a shopworker gently rolls up a folk painting for a waiting samurai. Hanging behind her is a painting of Oni no Nembutsu (A Demon Praying), a mystical goblin who pacifies crying children.
Meanwhile, across the street, a woman tries to pacify a childish patron.
Through her eyes
A woman’s 300-mile journey reaches its emotional conclusion when she crosses the Great Sanjō Bridge and sees Kyoto’s magnificent palaces and temples for the first time.
As a memento of the trip, The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō became an immediate bestseller and deservedly so.
Hiroshige is at his finest when he’s painting a landscape, although he rarely depicts nature in isolation. Instead, he populates each landscape with everyday figures who draw us into their world without aggressively asserting their presence. His characters are good company—and good company makes a long journey seem shorter.
Epilogue
While traveling through Japan on a lecture tour in 1922, Albert Einstein was profoundly moved by the integration of art into daily life. To honor his trip, he was presented with a full-size volume of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō as a gift.
