Title : The Hill at Kanagawa (Station #4)

Artist : Utagawa Hiroshige

Date : c. 1833 - 1834

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Source : Honolulu Museum of Art
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Description : The fourth station on the Tökaidö, the hill at Kanagawa is located in modern Yokohama. Hiroshige depicts houses and restaurants along the banks of the bay, waiting to serve the many travelers that passed along the road. Some of the restaurants are shown with balconies where travelers could enjoy exceptional ocean views as they ate their meals. This print series was first published by two publishing companies: Senkakudö and Hoeidö. However, after the eleventh print, Senkakudö withdrew from the print-publishing business. Hoeidö completed the remaining prints in the series, for a total of 55 prints published by 1834. Once the series was completed, it was also released as a bound album. The numerous late impressions of prints from this series that survive, sometimes with evidence that they were issued by a different publisher who had acquired the rights to the woodblocks, attest to the enduring popularity of Hiroshige’s first Tökaidö series well after his death in 1858. This series established Hiroshige’s reputation as a landscape artist, opening up numerous opportunities to collaborate with a wide variety of different publishers for the rest of his long, successful career. ("The Tôkaidô Road: Connecting Japan" exhibition Nov/26/2009-Jan/24/2010)

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