The Kisokaidō route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country’s then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous passage between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto . Inns, shops, and restaurants were established to provide sustenance and lodging to weary travelers. In 1835, renowned woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works to chart the Kisokaidō journey. After producing 24 prints, Eisen was replaced by Utagawa Hiroshige , who completed the series of 70 prints in 1838. Both Eisen and Hiroshige were master print practitioners . In The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaidō , we find the artists’ distinct styles as much as their shared expertise. From the busy starting post of Nihonbashi to the castle town of Iwamurata, Eisen opts for a more muted palette but excels in figuration, particularly of glamorous women , and relishes snapshots of activity along the route , from shoeing a horse to winnowing rice. Hiroshige demonstrates his mastery of landscape with grandiose and evocative scenes , whether it’s the peaceful banks of the Ota River, the forbidding Wada Pass, or a moonlit ascent between Yawata and Mochizuki. Taken as a whole, The Sixty-Nine Stations collection represents not only a masterpiece of woodblock practice, including bold compositions and an experimental use of color , but also a charming tapestry of 19th-century Japan, long before the specter of industrialization. This TASCHEN XXL edition revives the series with due scale and splendor. Sourced from the only-known set of a near-complete run of the first edition of the series , this legendary publication is reproduced in the finest quality , bound in the Japanese tradition and with uncut paper. A perfect companion piece to TASCHEN’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo , it is at once a visual delight and a major artifact from the bygone era of Imperial Japan.