I am fascinated by the idea of a road that has been around for at least 400 years with such a history as the Tokaido. The coastal route between Kyoto and Tokyo which noblemen were expected to traverse, each year to pay their respects and tolls to the Shogun in Tokyo. Some of the original route is still there today....some with what purport to be the original paving stones...and probably are. A section of it runs behind my mother-in-law's current residence and I have paced up and down on it absorbing some of its history ....well at least in spirit. Hiroshige, set out on a major publishing project to capture in drawings ..thence woodcuts and thence multicoloured prints...the 53 stations along the route where the travellers would find lodging and food for the night. It was a mammoth undertaking and this book not only captures in high quality prints....the original woodcuts but also includes enlarged sections and other woodcuts of the same area. I have entertained the rather romantic notion of walking a couple of the sections of the Tokaido...specifically from Hakone or Odawara to Mishima. (I have family who live in Mishima and have always loved the widespread adoption of Hiroshige's woodcut of the Shrine at Mishima as advertising and labelling. One thing has always puzzled me about Hiroshige's prints and that is the odd placement of the legs.....perpetually bent like they are doing some form of knee bend exercises. Maybe if you are walking in straw sandals you DO need to lift your feet high...or maybe he just liked drawing them this way......Or maybe he just had trouble with legs. But this doesn't detract from the dramatic distorted perspectives ...the artful design of his prints and the fascinating historical record that they preserve. Hiroshige was an inspiration to many of the impressionist painters and so his legacy lives on in the western art tradition. I do recall watching the process of the printing: the the colour is not applied evenly to the woodblocks. If they desire to have the blue sky fading away then the printer will wipe off some of the ink and then print. So even though the printing process may involve 4 colours and 4 separate woodblocks there is the possibility of almost infinite variation, depending upon the skill and intent of the printer. This book is all in Japanese and unfortunately I can't read the Japanese but as it is probably 95% pictures this is not a huge drawback. I must confess to a great admiration of Hiroshige and his work and I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. One thing that I really liked about it is the enlarged section of the main prints. These show in exquisite detail, the complexity of the drawings and the skill of the engravers and the printers. (I believe that most of these functions were undertaken by separate people...not Hiroshige himself. Alll in all, A great book and happy to recommend it. ( )