This is the small book of Hiroshige's prints that Patrick Carey used on his journey from Tokyo to Kyoto. It is mainly a book of the prints but from the small text I learned that because his prints were so popular, Hiroshige actually made 20 series of prints of the same 53 stations. The series presented here is different from the series in Carey's book.

The author states the wood block print medium "was an art of the common people. The aristocracy would probably have considered ukioyo-e beneath their dignity. Strangely enough, it took enthusiastic Westerners to convince the Japanese that ukioyo-e was a great art form." I have read in other sources that pottery was shipped from Japan to Europe wrapped in wood block prints and that is one of the ways that European artists first got a glimpse of these prints. ( )

While the block prints of Hiroshige are small in this pocket-sized book, they are still beautiful and capture that scenery that lined the Emperor's highway that skirted the east coast of Japan. It is not hard to imagine the royal retinue making their way among this fantastic landscape. ( )