Fujisawa, Station 6

Hiroshige entered the Utagawa school at age fourteen. Over the course of his lifetime, he produced over eight thousand works including landscape prints and etchings of flowers, birds and fish in a style that combines realism and lyricism. In 1832, he accompanied the Shōgun’s delegation on the Tōkaidō, Japan’s major thoroughfare. He made the series The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō upon his return, producing many versions with widely varying formats and styles. This print depicts the sixth station, the town of Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture. A group of blind men have crossed the bridge and are approaching the Torii gate. In the background, a temple stands on a hill at the foot of an enormous tree.