"Derrière moi, à Edo Je laisse mon pinceau
En route pour un nouveau voyage
Laissez-moi admirer
Toutes les vues célèbres du Paradis"
Utagawa Hiroshige, Poème d'adieu, 1858

(...) Son oeuvre d'une originalité surprenante, fascinera les japonais et influencera les occidentaux (Whistler, Pissarro, van Gogh, Monet, Bonnard). L'une des suites d'estampes les plus évocatrices offertes aux amateurs de paysages et de voyages, Les Cinquante-trois relais du Tôkaido, publiée en 1833-34, lui valut une célébrité immédiate et universelle."
Giséle Lambert
Ces 53 estampes (55 avec le départ et l'arrivée) reproduites en couleurs, à pleine page, exécutées par Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) en 1832 le long de la route du Tôkaidô (Edo-Kyoto).

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Literally meaning "pictures of the floating world", ukiyo-e refers to the famous Japanese woodblock print genre that originated in the 17th century and is practically synonymous with the Western world’s visual characterization of Japan. Because they could be mass-produced, ukiyo-e works were often used as designs for fans, New Year’s greeting cards, single prints, and book illustrations, and traditionally they depicted city life, entertainment, beautiful women, kabuki actors, and landscapes. The influence of ukiyo-e in Europe and the USA often referred to as Japonisme, can be seen in everything from impressionist painting to today’s manga and anime illustration. This reprint is made from one of the finest complete original sets of woodblock prints belonging to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo.

Hiroshige (1797-1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Though he captured a variety of subjects, his greatest talent was in creating landscapes of his native Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and his final masterpiece was a series known as "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" (1856-1858). This resplendent complete reprint pairs each of the 120 large-scale illustrations with a description, allowing readers to plunge themselves into Hiroshige’s beautifully vibrant landscapes.