First Paper

Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido: Shimosuwa

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This print by Hiroshige is of the post town of Shimosuwa. This prospered as the sole hot spring resort on the Kisokaido and also as the intersection with the Koshu Highway. Nearby were the Grand shrines of Suwa well-known for the “Onbashira” (Sacred Pillar Erecting) festival. The picture is a detailed scene of customers taking a meal in an inn. The man with his back to the picture is said to be Hiroshige. Hiroshige had a habit of putting himself into his prints. The Grand Shrines in Suwa that are close to the location of the print are over 1200 years old. They are some of the oldest shrines of the Shinto religion in Japan. It is mentioned in the Kojiki. It consists of four shrine building complexes, the Kamisha, or upper shrine, Shimosuwa, or lower shrine, or lower shrine, Harumiya, or spring shrine, and Akimiya, or autumn shrine. The Grand Shrine’s component shrines are located in Suwa, Nagano and Shimosuwa. The Grand Shrines are the focus of the Onbashira festival, held every six years.

The famous Onbashira festival last took place in 2004 and will next take place in 2010. The climax of the festival consists of the Kiotoshi (young men ride the as they slide down a steep slope) and the Tate Onbashira (later as they are raised as pillars). The Tate Onbashira is particularly well-known because it was presented at the opening ceremony of the Nagano Olympics in 1998. The Onbashira festival is also known as one of Japan’s big three fanciful festivals. For the Onbashira Festival huge trees are cut from the forest. Each shrine building requires four pillars, one at each corner, so a total of 16 pillars are erected. These huge pillars are called “Onbashira” and mark off the sacred space of the shrine. The festival consists of two parts that take place over a two-month period: Yamadashi (pulling Onbashira trunks out of the mountains) and Satobiki (hauling the Onbashira trees to the shrine's grounds). During this time a festive mood prevails over the whole Suwa area. When the festival was last held in 2004, it attracted about 1.78 million people. In the Yamadashi, which takes place at the beginning of April, 16 tree trunks are brought from the forest. They are cut from 200-year-old Japanese fir trees. The largest are 1 meter across (1.1 yd.), weighing around 12 t and measuring about 16 m long (17.5 yd.). In the Kiotoshi, a part of Yamadashi, people sit on the onbashira and slide down a steep 30- to 40- degree slope that measures about 100 m (110 yd.). This is the most exciting spectacle of the festival at the risk of people's lives. The trunks are rested for about a month until the Satobiki Festival at the beginning of May, when they are taken to the shrine precincts and erected as Onbashira. It takes 3 days to move the trunks a total of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles). Special songs are sung as people haul the trunks. Besides hauling the Onbashira, other festivities include the "samurai" cavalcade and a dance with traditional flower arranged hats spreads over a wide area in parades. At the culmination of the festival, the Onbashira arrive at the shrine buildings to be erected in the Tate Onbashira. Two ropes are wrapped around each onbashira and they are pulled into an upright position with young men sitting on them. The young men, who remain at the top of the onbashira as it rises 16 meters above the ground, perform some feats. The completion of Tate Onbashira brings to an end a festival that, including time for preparation, lasts three years.

This print is part twenty nine of the Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido. This is part of a series of ukiyo-e works created by Utagawa Hiroshige and Keisai Eisen. There are 71 total prints in the series (one for each of the 69 post stations and Nihonbashi; Nakatsugawa-juku has two prints). The common name for the Kiso Kaido is “Nakasendo,” so this series is sometimes referred to as the Sixty-nine Stations of the Nakasendo. It is a follow up to Hiroshige’s The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido and he produced 47 of the prints, with Eisen being responsible for the rest.

The Nakasendo was one of the Five Routes constructed under Tokugawa Ieyasu, a series of roads linking the historical capitol of Edo with the rest of Japan. The Nakasendo connected Edo with the then-capital of Kyoto. It was an alternate route to the Tokaido and travelled through the central part of Honshu, thus giving rise to its name, which means “Central Mountain Road.” Along this road, there were sixty-nine different post stations, which provided stables, food, and lodging for travelers.

For some context on why this print and other prints by Hiroshige were preserved I will give a brief biography of Hiroshige. Hiroshige was born in 1797 and died in 1858. In the canon of ukiyo-e there is one name above all others that evokes the tender, lyrical beauty of the Japanese landscape – Hiroshige. Born in Edo as Ando Tokutaro, he grew up in a minor samurai family that belonged to the Edo Castle’s firefighting force. It is here that Hiroshige was given his first exposure to art: legend has it that a fellow fireman tutored him in the popular Kano school of painting. In 1811 at the age of fifteen, the young artist entered an apprenticeship with the celebrated Utagawa Toyohiro and was bestowed with the artist name, Hiroshige after only a year. Despite this, his artistic genius went largely unnoticed with the public until the publication of his "The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido," a landmark series documenting the journey from Edo to Kyoto. With the Tokugawa Shogunate relaxing centuries of age-old restrictions on travel, urban populations embraced travel art and Hiroshige arguably became the most prominent and successful printer of the Tokugawa era. In 1856 while working on his masterpiece "100 Famous Views of Edo," Hiroshige retired from public life to become a Buddhist monk. Hiroshige’s work had a profound influence on the Impressionists of Europe: Toulouse Lautrec was fascinated with his daring diagonal compositions and inventive use of perspective, Van Gogh himself literally copied two prints from "100 Famous Views of Edo" in painting. In 1858 at the age of sixty-two, Hiroshige passed away as a result of the Edo cholera epidemic but his work continues to convey the beauty of Japan and provide insight into the everyday life of its citizens.

Compositionally the print has much that makes it very interesting. The use of perspective is very clever. The print makes your eye go from the big space that takes up most of the print to the person in the small space taking the bath. The use of the many layers used to construct the inn makes one want to see the rest of the structure. The layout of the print make the inn seem unbelievably big. There is both vegetable and mineral paint used in the print. The blue is all mineral while the rest is vegetable and according to Dr. Chance this is a sign of transition in the use of paints. Also, considering none of the men have swords it would suggest that the class of people in the print are most likely merchants. The stone in the picture leading up into the inn is most likely used as a welcoming gesture by the artist.