This image is considered the masterpiece of Hiroshige’s famous series, Fifty-three Stations on the Tokaido Road. Shono was the forty-sixth posting station on the great highway linking Edo and Kyoto.

In a lashing rainstorm, two sets of travelers cross paths, one going up a hill, the other, down. The uphill bearers, with the wind at their backs, bend to their task. They have thrown a cloth over the ridgepole of the litter (kago) bearing their charge, who is just visible at an open corner. The downhill travelers fare much worse, facing into the wind. An umbrella, and even a sedge hat, are impossible to manage in the gusting downpour. Fortunately, roofs seen in a nearb-y valley suggest possible refuge.

The design of this scene moves in long diagonals with and against the wind, perfectly conveying its subject. The graded tonalities of black ink define the intensity of the storm, which lightens toward the left, where the trees are slightly more upright and the angles of the rain less acute.

On the umbrella are two inscriptions, which mark this print as a first edition. Characters reading “Series of fifty-three,” and “Take no Uchi,” the name of one of the publishers of the print, were left out of subsequent issues. Among connoisseurs, the omission is considered an improvement.

For many Western viewers landscapes are the hallmark of Japanese woodblock prints. By one estimate, however, only about fifteen percent of the output of ukiyo-e were landscape prints. The heyday of the genre came with Hiroshige and Hokusai after the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Hiroshige’s landscape designs alone are estimated at over fifty-five hundred.

The traditional title of the series makes reference to fifty-three stations along the famous road, but the series also included the beginning and end stations, bringing the actual number of images to fifty-five.


(For Grades K-2)

What colors do you see in this woodblock?

Which types of lines do you see in this woodblock?

What is happening in this picture? How can you tell?



(For Grades 6-8)

Identify and discuss all of the elements of art found in this painting. (Color, shape/form, line, texture, space and value).

Describe what is going on in this image. What are the people in this work of art doing?

What do you see expressively? In other words, we know what these people are doing, but how are they feeling?

What might the symbols and the Japanese calligraphy on this print mean?