Kunisada 53 Stations of the Tokaido

The 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō by Utagawa Kunisada (1786 – 12 January 1865) is both a tour through the landscape of Japan and a cultural introduction.

But first of all it is a fashion magazine about beautiful, young and stylish Japanese women in 1838. These young beauties were one of the subjects Kunisada excelled in.

Kunisada show beautiful girls from all walks of life, explorers and adventurers, musicians, theater stars, imperial concubines, country girls, business women. They all have beauty and great fashion taste as the common denominator. His landscapes were a means of circumventing censorship especially of theater prints and pin-up prints of pretty ladies, bijin-ga.

The work is probably one of the most romantic of all the Tōkaidō editions.