Tōkaidō and Kabuki Theater

Tōkaidō was a road that ran for around 265 miles (427 km) through the east of Japan, connecting the imperial capital, Kyoto, with the military capital, Edo (now Tokyo). Along it, the government established 53 resting stations where travelers could find food and lodging, and buy supplies.

The Tōkaidō road is usually associated with landscape prints by Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai. Unlike these artists, Kunisada featured Tōkaidō in his portraits of the most famous actors, connecting them in some way to landscapes or legends of the road.

This is one of Kunisada's later series, completed when he was signing his works with the name Toyokuni III. In the foreground is a large Kabuki actor, and in the background is a landscape showing the station, inspired by Hiroshige's landscapes of the Tōkaidō road.

This series was produced in the ōban tate-e format. It depicts the intermediate stations that were located between two main ones. It consists of 57 pictures, some of which are diptychs and triptychs.

The 57 prints only depict 53 of the intermediate stations. In some of the prints, Kunisada depicted two intermediate stations between two main ones, and in two of them, he showed three intermediate stations.

It should be noted that these prints were made during the Tenpō reforms. These reforms were the government's attempt to restore the morality of its citizens—which it believed had significantly deteriorated—by imposing numerous restrictions, many of which were aimed at the theater.

Prior to these reforms, the actors' names would appear on the prints in some form. Although the reforms put an end to this, artists came up with various ways to avoid this censorship and continue to meet the high demand for prints.

The connection that Kunisada established between Kabuki theater and the landscape of the Tōkaidō varied widely with each print. This shows the artist's deep familiarity not just with the world of the theater itself, but also with the myths and legends surrounding the Tōkaidō.

This is Kunisada's final, unfinished series, printed in the ōban tate-e format in 1864, in the last month of his life. It is a somewhat original series, and was the work of both Kunisada and Kawanabe Kyōsai.

Kunisada was responsible for the lower part of the print, featuring one, two, or three Kabuki actors at a Tōkaidō station. Kyōsai, meanwhile, drew the upper part, depicting processional scenes as a shogun (military leader) visited the emperor.

This two-part composition clearly intended to cover two popular topics in one work: portraits of famous actors, and the shogun's procession. The aim was to maximize its interest to collectors as a collaboration between a young artist and an established one.

This is a series created by Toyohara Kunichika and Hiroshige II in 1867 as a result of the success achieved by the one that Kunisada produced. Kunichika, who specialized in Kabuki theater actors, was responsible for the lower part, while Hiroshige II, a landscape artist, drew the upper part.

The title of this series highlights the importance of landscape and depictions of it in Japanese culture. The ryō was a coin weighing 0.06 of an ounce (17.9 g) of gold, or one koku (a Japanese unit of volume) of rice.

The prints depict the Kabuki actors not in the theater, but in an imaginary landscape on a faraway island, or sometimes in a house. Some of the prints depict an allegory rather than an actor or character.

Throughout the Edo period, Tōkaidō was the busiest and most important road in Japan. Its importance made it a national symbol from which artists of all kinds drew inspiration, dedicating countless works of art and literature to it.