In this season, the ukiyo-e works of Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III) that illustrated Fifty-three Stations of the Toukaidou Highway and Enoshima Island will be featured.
Since Utagawa Kunisada was succeeded his master’s name “Toyokuni” in 1844 (Tempou 15), when he was 59 years old, today he is also known as “Toyokuni III”. Kunisada’s work became enormously popular at the end Edo period, therefore among other ukiyo-e artists, Kunisada has the largest number of existed works today.
Kunisada’s forte was portraits of people and he produced many masterpieces with the images of actors and beauties. Although with the huge hit of the landscapes of famous places created by Hokusai and Hiroshige, Kunisada was also influenced by this mode. Before the huge hit of the landscapes of famous places, the background of Kunisada’s actor’s pictures were typically the scenes or settings of the plays or just the monotone color. However, after the hit, he produced many innovative masterpieces combining the images of actors and beauties with the sceneries of famous places on the background.

Special Exhibition Section: In this section, “Travelling the Toukaidou Highway with Actors” that illustrated the landscapes of the post stations along the Toukaidou Highway, and “Beauties with Landscapes along the Toukaidou Highway”, better known as “Toukaidou with Beauties” that illustrated the beauties with the exquisite combinations of the famous places will be introduced.

Enoshima Island Section: In this section, centered on the Kunisada’s works that illustrated Enoshima Island, the works of his pupils will also be featured. Enjoy the world of the most popular artist of the late Edo period for the both sections.

Fifty-three Stations of the Toukaidou Highway Section and Fujisawa Post Station Section: As continued from the previous exhibition, the sceneries of “Mitsuke” to “Kyoto” stations from “Tsutaya Edition: Fifty-three Stations of the Toukaidou Highway” will be exhibited in these sections. Addition to these works, enjoy the works related to Fujisawa City. From Hiroshige’s bird-and-flower picture series, the picture of “wisteria”, which is the flower of Fujisawa City and the picture of “kingfisher”, which is the bird of Fujisawa City will be introduced for the first time.