Kisokaidô: Okute - Station 47

Just past Okute, the road ran along the side of a mountain with large exposed rocks (1). This strangely shaped boulder known by the name Horo is exaggerated by Hiroshige who used it to make an almost abstract landscape. The two woodcutters (2) walking homewards at the end of the day, their loads reaching high above their heads are dwarfed by the rocks, the interestingly shaped pines and the featureless hills. After Horo, the slope becomes steeper until it reaches the Biwa-toge pass where travelers could look southwards to Mt.Ibuki, Mt.Hakusan and in the distance, the bay of Ise.

This is a composition which depends entirely on the skills of its printer for its success. In the first editions, a brown bokashi is used in the well of the valley with dark green bokashi on the brow of the hill, yellow in the sky and the setting sun and dark blue bokashi for the coming night. Later printings see the green bokashi disappear and a flatter sky while a printing flaw (3) develops in the rocks. Then the defect is corrected, but the colour palette is flatter and the blue bokashi (4) in the sky is gone. Modern reproductions are often disappointing as if they did not dare to use such a bright colour scheme.

(Source: The 69 stations of the Kisokaido, Sebastian Izzard, Brazillier 2008)

And now ?

The road between Oi and Okute goes through 13 hills and 13 small passes (jusan-toge means 13 passes) which gave their name to this section of the journey. The road is very old here, probably used since the 8th century and is narrow and difficult with irregular steps and old paving. We enter the Owari clan territory who belonged to Oda Nobunaga and later to the Tokugawa clan. It was one of the strongest territories in Japan and after the Tokugawa victory at Sekigahara in 1600, it was awarded to one the three main branches of the Tokugawa family or “Tokugawa Gosante”. Tokugawa Ieyasu gave the most powerful territories to his other sons: Owari with Nagoya as capital to his ninth son (Nagoya is mid-way between Tokyo and Osaka and is now Japan’s 3rd largest city), Kii to his 10th son with Wakayama, south of Kyoto as capital and Mito to his 11th son with Mito, north of Tokyo as capital.

Okute was a small station at 360km/225 mi from Edo with a checkpoint. It is today included in Mizunami city and the only remains of the station are parts of the waki-honjin, the kosatsuba or official notice board and a few older houses. The honjin was on the hill above the city, but it has been destroyed and a college has been built at its former location. From this college, one can see the roofs of the village, as per Nishijima Katsuyuki print below. The main curiosity of the city is a huge cedar tree, believed to be over 1200 years old and located in the Okute Jinja Shrine.

After Okute, the road heads towards the Biwa-toge Pass which had a bad reputation, probably due more to the weather than to its height. This is where the rocks taken by Hiroshige as the focal point in his print are located. As can be seen from the picture below, Hiroshige has exaggerated the rock size. The ascent to the pass is paved and known as “Ishidani”. It is the longest remaining paved section in Japan. Jizo statues are lined up to protect the travelers. This is the last difficult stretch of the road as it descends towards the plain.