- Series: “Fifty-three Stations on the Tôkaidô Road“ also known as “Tôkaidô with kyôka poetry”
- Tôkaidô gojûsan tsugi 東海道五十三次;
- Kyôka-iri Tôkaidô 狂歌入東海道
- c 1837–38
- Publisher: Sanoya Kihei 佐野屋喜兵衛 (Sanoki, Kikakudô; aktiv c 1830s)
- Signature: Hiroshige ga 廣重画
- Marks: artist’s seal
- Inskriptions: kyôka poem (春霞ともに立出てめをとばしわたりつるみの心のとけし) by Haruzono Shizue 春園静枝 (dates unknown)
- Format: horizontal middle-size print (chûban yoko-e)
- Medium: multicolor woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and colors on paper
From a ferry-boat crossing at Kawasaki. Many pilgrims stopped at this 2nd station on the Tôkaidô Road to worship at a Buddhist temple nearby.
The shôguns (generals) of the Tokugawa family ruled Japan in relative peace from 1603 to 1868. Edo – today's Tokyo – was their city of residence. During this time the emperor remained in Kyoto. There were five major roads in the country. From the very beginning of the shogunate (the feudal state), these arteries of traffic were controlled from designated checkpoints (seki). The bridge at Nihonbashi in central Edo was the starting point for calculating distances in the land.
The two most important roads connected the cities Edo and Kyoto. Tôkaidô Road was 514 kilometers long and followed the coastline; the Kisokaidô Road was inland. Activities at the junctions (known as “stations,” “stages” or “posts”) along these roads became famous motifs of ukiyo-e artists. Their portrayals show the celebrities of that era, for instance, daimyô provincial lords en route to Edo, where their families were required to live.
The shôgun traveled in the opposite direction, to Kyoto. Ukiyo-e masters and publishers commemorated a shôgun’s final trip to Kyoto made in 1863 (after a lapse of 230 years) with the series “The Scenic Places of the Tôkaidô” (Tôkaidô Meishô no Uchi). Hiroshige was not allowed to portray the shôgun himself, but on his latest trip in 1864, drew sketches and maps that were much appreciated for their possible military and strategic value.
The view from Kawasaki Station has a poetic inscription, a kyôka, "comical verse" which in translation would read like this: “Through the springtime haze a husband and wife pass across the Husband-and-Wife Bridges at Tsurumi. Their minds melt together.”
