#32 Arai: watashi bune no zu (Ferry Boats near Arai), Utagawa Hiroshige

Archive Label 2003: Arai was the 32nd way station along the Tokaido, or Eastern Coast Road, a 351-mile route that extended from the bustling city of Edo (Tokyo) to the imperial capital of Kyoto. This set of 55 prints designed by Hiroshige caught hold of public imagination and became one of the most popular graphic art series ever created, with thousands of impressions sold. There had been prints and illustrated guidebooks published prior to Hiroshige’s, showing the diverse sights and unique activities that travelers could experience on a Tokaido journey. But Hiroshige’s vision of his world drew on common experiences of weather, seasonal tasks and daily routines of the people around him to create an empathetic picture of Japan that everyone could identify with. From the beginning of the Edo period (1615-1868), every daimyo, or land-holding aristocrat, was required to pay a ceremonial visit to Japan’s capital city of Kyoto. This produced a constant traffic of official retinues travelling back and forth from the political center of Edo, as well as to and from home estates throughout the country. Such an arduous journey usually took about two weeks, one way, so many post-stations developed to serve food, shelter and messenger relay needs. This view of the Arai station, the site of a ferry crossing across …….shows a daimyo retinue in transit across the waves, evidenced by the banners flying from the boat The highway journey included several such river fords, where travelers could pay a fee for ferryboat passage. At other fords with shallower waters, travelers could hire a set of strong shoulders to carry them piggyback across a stream in order to keep their own toes dry.