The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is presenting the prints of Andō Hiroshige until September 8. If the beauty of the works is striking, we can also approach this exhibition in different ways, these representations of life in 19th century Japan being very meaningful.

If we see 55 graphic works at first glance when entering the rooms of the Museum of Fine Arts, we quickly realize that they are also (and perhaps above all) 55 stories.

These Fifty-three stages of the Tōkaidō (because there is the beginning and the end, so 55 prints in total) show the relays that travelers made on the road which separates Tokyo (Edo) and Kyoto. The distance of approximately 500 kilometers was covered on foot.

“It was a means of control for the emperor. The time these politicians and their entourages were on the road, they were not planning a revolution to overthrow power,” says Laura Vigo, curator of Asian art at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The curator wrote explanatory notes for almost all the prints. This guides us in the visit, since these notes tell stories. Sometimes very realistic, other times completely fantastical. “Realistic cartography did not exist in Japan,” explains the curator. It was all imaginary. It’s the evocation, the aesthetic. »

The prints are part of the Museum’s collection, which acquired them more than 50 years ago.

“Advertising was invented in Japan, during the Edo period,” says Laura Vigo, who shows that this series by Andō Hiroshige is a telling illustration of this. “Product placement blends into the prints,” she says, although she points out that visitors won’t see, for example, the names of cosmetics in one of the scenes. “Publishers did that,” she continues, “because they had to sell all sorts of products.”

“It’s the beginning of the consumer society as we know it today,” says the curator.

Edo merchants had therefore already understood that these illustrations were a very good way to, more or less subtly, show their brands and their products.

Takenouchi Magohachi, Hiroshige’s publisher, was very sensitive to what the mercantile class wanted. He sometimes requested changes from the designer or printer when a print was not selling enough. “Hiroshige could in this case change the composition according to what the clientele wanted,” explains Laura Vigo.

Although some pilgrims sometimes made the journey, the Tōkaidō route was designed for samurai since the journey was long and laborious. Hiroshige himself came from the samurai class – which gave him some financial freedom.

For others who could not even dream of making this journey, the prints allowed them to see the country. “It was a bit like flipping through National Geographic,” says Laura Vigo.

The prints were printed in 15,000 copies. Hiroshige did one per week for this series.

“During the Edo period, Japan was the country with the highest literacy rate in the world. Everyone was reading. The publishing industry was extremely developed,” says Vigo.

The concept of art did not exist in Japan before it was brought there by Westerners, explains Laura Vigo. Andō Hiroshige was considered an artisan, in the noble sense of the term.

“The idea of ​​art is an extremely Eurocentric concept,” explains the curator. “It was not perceived that way in Japan or in Asia. It is a concept that was applied in Far East Asia only from the colonial interference of the 19th century.”

For the record: some copies of these prints celebrated at the museum today were at the time used as wrapping paper for ceramic bowls…

If you visit the exhibition and take the time to read all the explanations that accompany the images, which we recommend you do, you will learn a lot about Japan in the Edo era.

“I wanted visitors to look at and understand the scene without going into classic formal analysis,” explains Laura Vigo, a trained archaeologist and storyteller. To do this, the curator included anecdotes so that visitors could reach a level of understanding that would otherwise be impossible.

For example, who knew that the white powder that geishas used at the time contained lead? Sadly, the use of the metal killed some of them before they even reached their twenties.

“People will come away knowing more about Japan and the social and political context of the time.”