The Kichizō Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road, Gojūsan tsugi no uchi, 東海道六五十三次之内 is another very original of Hiroshige's huge Tokaido Road production.
Until the introduction of "Berlin Blue", an artificial print color, the Japanese ukiyo-e printers used only natural colors and drak shade was difficult and expensive to make. Hiroshige made full use of the new color here.
The first thing you notice about this series is that the prints are often a bit dark. This is because most of them are dawn or dusk snapshots with a burning red horizon. until then it had been very expensive to create darkness, but this series accentuates the evening and the night.
Another detail is that very few of the prints show samurai or daimyo. Most of the people here are commoners, rich merchants, not so rich merchants, pilgrims, coolies, all commoners.
A third important detail is that there is one print less than usual, to reach an equal number. This will surely create confusion. We have included the original Hoeidō prints with numbers as key.
